Fs ern 


a =~ a Sa ET 
SE en yn, 


rt 
Saree 


<= ae : Sener 
rete syintanom— : : 


= A ACT 
2 SS eee ee = ED a EINE 


a 


SS 
ane a 


SSeS eee 


SR eS 


oa 


nescence 


eT SM I an 


aaa re 


Sere 


Nod te ree parent ae pine yee Be 
Sa pe eo 


(eerie 


tittle 


Ui 


latina 


OETA 


Tal ane 


HALE Le 


LIBRARY OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 


aon sae —S 
4 


. 


dea 

Teen 

PTT RULE TA ASE tee wie 

SAAN ALATA man HILFE) 
ij 


HES ae HN PENH TTEOUT LEERY 
iil Apia aati hy 


APRER RRR TS VP RS PEP PST EEA BG ot bh PTY 
VOM PEERE SE Da tub accep eae eee at sea 


ae Ugaearte tg Scan aig nA ele AE 
A it " n Hy she) s i nye pepeeee 
Haya aytaatat AH on NHL ist HHI 


. Ui iiinineties PEE ADE 
bik Hit: Pan an Wehtine fern wit ae HAULER AULA AT Ty ERLE } 
Lees om HUTA TAU HEE i ae 
PAPEL BESET ESYE SEU ERDS ayuasians seeeeyt inh tabbareet Hit Ht th Taba 
Seversaceunvepnpeceyreganss OH RUET EET RRLET PM liar yeh itl WHE! 


ih 
Hat 


ital 


Ph eat) wn) PePREST RST ae at 


eer eeoeeUPAT AERTS AMS 
Hote SEVeegh es tunaet Hite Wi! i! 

a at | 
TURE PEAT 


Habits Meade) pee en i 


Mitt AU) Hi if ih) 


HUAI WSHTSAGB] HELD 
Marte Setneey 

peeMeiuye Hilt 

HON LiALLL HE 


her Peon ered rege ee 
ut | f TATPO Et TEE 
Mi ii Wea EL 


RE 


bhatt 
geadenerridt site biiyianl Hy Giunta 
DOCU EEO EU IEEE bie 


st 

He 

RHEE 

tii 

HE 

th 

Hit 

PACH HHT THERE UH a HA 
| 

hye 

i 

Hath 


terete 


say He ss 


seat NTE 


ii ree tebrstenpy if! ih initit 
if i TCA oc nae 


Hupeaenbe eee en ast Hate 


aa ‘i if Pe tne Abd thanges speucgbeyygesteapar gover abt pee GUTH fii 
i i UTE HAV MUT HAL ADT RITE Witt SARA ET ULEEPAR ELE AY t i H y v tH fant vil 
pute aT SE in jai i FAR AH HAH t i) i ete pair 
tH Partherbereereer Ger yLE eee on Payee tp ge! a H ; peleteeden t ny Hayy HABA 
HUI studs iit HHI iH Hutu! a Heh en iH Mh ih Mil yi li a La Hit 
ive i iH i Ht ttt SUPER REL PSH] TEE fet it ‘ Pree tt OEE 4] VTE EEE 
BWR Mgnt nth ATL TEE ete tatilat PA iil) ) i va 
SUT IEE REM aE See ee TTS EE EE sun aL A ERE 
TENET VUE AUTRE iets sili nth I i tae ree HEC CRUE iin SSH CLG HAE null | 
dyropbaney pean yett ah AEE Hy if LHratacaiatanendetly : Hata ath iit 
Witieleint pegeeeeny ecu T SGT ALTERS LEAR GASH LATA Re TH TARR ADE i ytgteeecaee fee ELGH UTE DR nn HIROTA it 
PEPENEATT ALLELE alia SFr AATATDINLSIRENSS DLADBVEUBLATL inf Ba THe HOSUR GET ill tit ai HERTHA LETTE Uy HEE i) ii} ty 
sybephc rai nlney ay abt ah a POU eee SEE | spp PUM PDe oe aE ea DN Ey RG i REY Huh fi HIP i ve ap EE HH 
nat a nite * Ht Wiel] HAVRE ARIST suaetoantis sites epETAN Aull ries eeeeee sung EU Le EEL Ne Hy tt hi Hein Hh 
Wipe Hiab i ivan ati LAG We HP HTTURR ASE) HERSEY! H Aha TEENA TEL esa! i a! Hii GH Nii Buia H ry 
sp eocen THIET ACA ARTE ! th eed EH inh Hh piveaicaee niin ntl ti set (ETE Waal \ i a i a i 
re ceaeetense cece ACHE A mA LHR LMS MA CEE a a a EAI PE TPR TT a i 
TCOpD UES) AEURDSELSORECUTECUDD OD BPCRU EDS) 200202 2TH BG BPS BETAS ait it 4 HAP aH ti H Ba TORT TR ne PR AEE Hi ie itl; i Hy 
nue UTE te aueeprnedeserqevateceay fees RY HEMT ae R Hs HHH ti Ha a a i} th H HHH uy Pa aH it 
Wy Hi easy MeO RHA SEREA aa Ht SR Te ee ar aratiartes pedi ati feat Ha HPI GH { \ 1) 
wT TE va ign nen a wan nyat eee ae ee tin HIHE gy Ha i 
tu bt i ith y tt ppg peutyergeaenpeyy drat niger ma \ is Vr ue sy) 1 y jane +H i} syn } {ft a | te ‘t RAAT Wn 4 eer ! i 1 { 
Te ee eee ae TAs ARE Mena a eh Wt ua Hey a i 
WNT NEBELRESEDOTEE ET Bil ‘ HENPHUBEU DERE SEOT ETB ALERT) HPRPRUTV AERA THAN RTM! hast th tH 
Hiren HU BUH HULDA Oita HBT asl maria it WH 
t it tb sy iin sett i COREL { 
Hes ae ee ey 1 
i anne ! i ‘ ‘ vue ibe t 1 ey 4 
Ws ae AHH th Visti ee i uy inna 1 Haiti Att He iin it na i 
teiiaygia HLA VERN Ha ihn Eel punniaattl tH ith HAW HH Hil CG A aut i tH ; 
PEYOS) Le ped obEE EH HY BEET Ht ein Hh Hill uty wpe are tee HATER i i 1 
eee Ha Se cE 
" AEE eA ES ye PUREE MEET u 
Ha We ine ii { mh | tH HH JSR PRET efit 4 WW HH Heneh Hi 
Ee a a UGTA HEGRE ac 
pi Sir hitb AUN SET tderrsterigratinr reer gtraay ith Tipit HG, aa hs HN Heitiiin Hy au WHat aS is 
eM mig aiqeeite tence IRAP TRH aint HEE TLE AER RESP itt HAT HE HR Hugenneate uate 
Ae eteeseah nypepiaartit HART ER START ICT ES RE HEE ENTE 
Boa tae sis ea i Hie AiG PLEERLGSRUMHGEUT HUBERT fl iii VINE it TVET EERE Pe sth | HH HG aE SUE SHEE 
Hn ip TTUAUSEEBLSELG ER SEE MH Factaahe vi Abed HAHEI Hi Hi iit CULLAETENE MRHABEL CEE TE TET Pal 
VPP di eee ber wee riicaayiqaqste eae a AE rill i al i ATRESIA SIRISES ER SR SR He tatoke ATA Hi HY 
paver gt pig eter welte HH wilt i it LT iH | SOPRA RD EE REUETAS nt 
init iain th PUL Et HL VED bili HHH wy aba eM ei Fig) Ra 
eyaabenine nya ‘ \ TR ed at ee ih TRAE hisbteeds tai th unit Ait i iL DEER Ha 
iit th wnt Hi tet ‘ aT HE We TEE ial Ht Hiihitnt a Cee ae Ht rattll Halt yl HAIGHT 
aed AL ER HANS atl CA : ii it bt i] IE anes Nabil i ! 
aqua Hii SHEA ae wR WAI La a it Ait nai Bi TRUTH RR aE 
THE AIUUEA SOU iatiactianienrn gents: HHH nid HHL HY aide whale) ! TR aye shone FORE UB Hai plinedti 
atin ity tt ji teyugill Hi HUAN AERTS Hat raitmetttratnad HHUA Mat HH a PB att tances 
Aer ene Rs Raed RO HT HN Hythe hatin Manidsrece tits PMU ba \; {WS eae Wiser Weateat geste {i i Hi ae HR ae pong Ht 
wi HUstal Hm! paenecsu eget fh Hina it I UE Ha AB Hon tf HUI Lise snc aU HELE HONEA tHE 
er i a IGT NTH HAMA TEE Hae a aaah HS 
a OAS rte all tit (pai a 
at th WEED 
FU 
Yt 


PML Ay MUAH) Hit Ha If i} i 
Hii PEPPEPEDALUEE DET UTE idiobiainns helt 


HI a a het aul 


Pay ipearete pry tya 


iF Ltrs nites soa HUTTE 


URES SHEE * 
da UR eee Det 


ili ABT 


i Hn Hil} 


Bn Bat 


ylang sti 
HUME ME i 


' 
ial 
Hai} 
1% 
i 
ppp abanit ti \ FH Hi ‘ i Wh ‘ Hy i as bh 
SE ee a an ANH A ea itt ie Tae Ieee A HA 
HET ee if _ High iit HAN THE AHA th RUT TU iunieiiil wi 
TET THERA MAURER UT ET ea ie iN} a Ha i Hi Ha an TIDE a Eee it qu 
LY ing TREAT HLH Le a ' shia ina rheryet | EHEC BH ae GH 
Hat Ayer act ea ij H f pene brsr HL 3 : inh | {i 
aaa UNH ii ahi a eT Nanaia aH Hai ARE wilt 
PR TO AIA ih Page He in Hit PIAA TAS aneesa He 
yur ain rs inet Ee HARE HE A 
iutaanets ARE Ht iI Mis ailied TATE uy 1 ‘hi WTR UREN LET ni Hav LTH 
POPES Ee Ta ith NM yan PH WH | A UPELE I ETTEGTE Ta 
fee TREAT ae ica ia US EASE TL ILM HAH BUHAY Sisenevet gear ai gen 
jest GUSTAVE MER RGA a THEA TAHT CR i iH ith Heh PRAIA uh ATH ATR ARGHTH 
iia nen NH A Hh Hae H Hi ett priate yt il i | ANE Palit Hi HA nn) f 
pede SH SEIAUATT EDL RHA TES HM A ASOT Tithe TBR WAHT 
FT Eee aa aatetiaedeneatt PT Hat a ih HET SAU WOU rreaeedtesnse teenie Ae 
aia AVE Ra HNHSU HTL ATAIGR RHEE HALE ht tft whit ny HPN | if i Wvanehtl a ( uit init TAPES ae hia 
teeeESTST Hd aT 1S ED BUD RH ADEA ESE AGEL UAH HAG HH enti uh } ite Aan ae A 11 TDL seagate prey igietd 
pea) PUPP eO CEPECEAP REE EU pg) ed ORE Perey ie ih) ue H syst Hi | | H uv iy | TSR Te Re SWOy ARRIETA GE Ln ttt Hl] HH if iil 
| it Wate PURUNL REESE nea ety } AEN eH a HH qi ith vy Hh tH tit ith i! H Ha yt wih fala Ueto ne Hay 1} 
See itt Hath HH a yep edad tBioaie SOALEYEEE UE It AH {{ ETEU PELE EEE ed ST EEPU RED iden vad at tot 
ease) HELM! His HN ma Petite HVetaittl CLO EERE ES ‘| nih WEATHER LITTER ALEVE TT HEE wa 
WMuee fi Hyine an i uy AMA Halaman nu Ht fiaiiil it He Bin if iin iN it Wik) ae Wnlins Hatensil HSH it 
H yrath i] Vettes rnbilapaee t i! i , t i ‘ Lb thy shun 
SHH PEEL TE hit ety ene ‘since ap ae i i i f Hh nab RESET) EU wath } 
WMH vegdaU eee O Ay Ug A APERDIAS RI RAGALE matt} | tharanarttite WHR 1a 109 Had Dornean Chu sass ; 
SAINTE nA ARO Aan at Tate a Hat ae ie mi 
ae Erber obiat taaty anit PY PEAR TO AACSTREES TRL EIRN Cean 1 seeped tte epeayy a TE 
: San Ha } Ail Hi Ain inh ET jal ' ‘any mi Ht i H i fi | AE alii it i APE IETREU) wi 
Foe CH ihe Ae Wea ey UH ACR RU AU TA iyi ii i 
Lita TEE f ttt i } 
: CE ey Alt i ea | 
antic Wak HVPET TNT ib AEN AA ; } ‘| Hf 
fA mis ng CEA Ts A Es 1S ae 
SHEL adores Rue ? AR iH Fa Ht it maT i i i Mall LN aun i 
yo dp ste te AAUP (ape pelt (it 4 Hattnadtaeta VAS Hi Ht Hatiehay | Ly PEERED MUD Pheeey bene | 
qpotacoeete ae th a aed PeeDeEPE Ee ETE YePER DAVEE Ue ae \) Ht 3 it DC eeReMee ey papiste rete 
Hi HSE andes i ' NETH Pn enna VEE Hh HH i Pee TBAT i 
uli sn WANG SGU ANG LSE SLE AUTRE TERT iit) in Win alate Hi IE EU 
TEE es REST BU Ee COUR HHH BUTT 
TY) NYRIN TERR sphere Ht Hu tot TREE eee a ry uel va Hi Hi ‘ \; R AH a} HE rays 
eR AE TOC CE ACEC RE An aE aig 
' yt Aa HIRE GL it GHA WOR weestiti vont Han, HH 
Hiei unig ae {fi HN iy wii Wane! Hitt Wi arin a th Any “ib iin A ik iti i i i 
Li a a HHL EEEE! ENT i HHA piel i | Tl UTHER Ha {hhh betta He Hee ay 
A A ae a i a th ARE EE 
Pe TARTAR: H ie TUL (Hou Hi Hi aati tiars sega ade 
i}! } {ATE RTM ACLAtH RRR wh THUG iste hea Attest AL CR My 
Pea eT EEE Ba EE il! Utena mas mtd JOUHEEE MOAR rete 
1 sya gnnian vuttt VIRTIN IGEN YT Seed CR aa iH CASAS 
it 


HA 


Hh uit pat WUE 


HAL MURA REE 


Hilti imine FAR HUI Aaa ( | 
te HT Baste 
Ha ROL he CC ia 
ye Hin nD eT ea AEG 
MASE 


yuan belt 


tf 


ae 

ober t i bes 

iii etieiitl 
i} 


aN 


Cina 
i ; 


—— 


iH 


SS SSS 


eer 


2) 


a sshd 


é 


Rubaiyat of 
Omar Khbayy4m — 


; 
‘ 
by 
if 


if) 


" 


EDWARD FITZGERALD. 


Wet ee 
| ae I 
¢ Rubatyat of e 
are lh 
g , g 
Omar Khayyam 
Rendered into English Verse 

& @ 
| By EDWARD FITZGERALD | 
a a 
| FOURTH EDITION WITH NOTES || 
| Together with a Tribute in Quatrains by Andrew || 
1 Lang, a brief Biography of both Poet and iemibvay be 

and a descriptive article by Edward S. Holden | 
Ba a 
| With Illustrations | 
I By GitBerT JAMES a 
Bi E 
| NEW YORK | 
M4 BARSE & HOPKINS. o 
PUBLISHERS ~ | 
a——~ ee eed ee BIE 


Copyright, 1899, 
BY 


BARSE & HOPKINS 


Copyright, 1917, by BARSE & HOPKINS 


PRINTED IN U. S. A. 


Contents 


GA. 
BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE . 2. 6 «© 7 


To Omar KHAyvYAM . 2. 2 e ce 36 
Andrew Lang. 


Omar Kuayydm, THE ASTRONOMER 


EGE OUSDERSIA pole l"s. 7 outer 4% 
By Edward Fitzgerald, 


RuspdArvAT OF OMAR KuHayYAM. 2 75 
Fourth Edition, 


NOTES (. = 6 6 6 @ ee 2 109 


List of Illustrations 


GA. 
PAGE 
PORTRAIT OF EDWARD FITZGERALD, 


FRONTISPIECE. 


AND AS THE COCK CREW, THOSE WHO 
STOOD MOREORE Gs eh er sor ied eens C 


But STILL A RUBY KINDLES IN THE 
VINE ee ct Hdl ets Men rel stole heer AO 


A Book OF VERSES UNDERNEATH _ 
THES DOUGH 7p uit, is sliten rely ae naO 


SOME FOR THE GLORIES OF THIS 
VVOREIM state) reri(ell hig tans hee 


Look TO THE BLOWING ROSE ABOUT 
IS eee PU ail oil val itetined le Ole hea eee OA. 


How SULTAN AFTER SULTAN WITH 
HAS@ HOME) |e) ss itierl set! ss). eg 


AH! LEAN UPON IT LIGHTLY. . . 76 


List of Illustrations 


CONTINUED 


CA. 


AH, MY BELOVED, FILL THE CUP . 


MYSELF WHEN YOUNG DID EAGERLY 
FREQUENT e e e © e e ® e 


EARTH COULD NOT ANSWER; NOR 
THE SEAS THAT MOURN 2... -« 


SO WHEN THAT ANGEL OF THE 
DARKER (DRINK (aig) peel e) aes 


THE BALL NO QUESTION MAKES OF 
ANTES WANT VNB hui rite cr) oie aan 


ONCE MORE WITHIN THE POTTER’S 
HOVUSEVALONE on cibket leet eerie 


AND IN YOUR joyous ERRAND 
REACH (THE SPOT. ein alert wie 


PAGE 


80 


84 


88 


92 


I02 


108 


Biographical Preface. 
we 
Rew FITZGERALD, whom the 


world has already learned, in spite af 
his own efforts to remain within the shadow 
of anonymity, to look upon as one of the 
rarest poets of the century, was born at Bred- 
field, in Suffolk, on the 31st of March, 1809, 
He was the third son of John Purcell, of 
Kilkenny, in Ireland, who, marrying Miss 
Mary Frances Fitzgerald, daughter of John 
Fitzgerald, of Williamstown, County Water- 
ford, added that distinguished name to his 


Own patronymic; and the future Omar was 
2 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


thus doubly of Irish extraction. (Both the 
families of Purcell and Fitzgerald claim 
descent from Norman warriors of the eleventh 
century.) This circumstance is thought to 
have had some influence in attracting him to 
the study of Persian poetry, Iran and Erin 
being almost convertible terms in the early 
days of modern ethnology. After some years 
of primary education at the grammar school 
of Bury St. Edmunds, he entered Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, in 1826, and there formed 
acquaintance with several young men of great 
abilities, most of whom rose to distinction 
before him, but never ceased to regard with 
affectionate remembrance the quiet and amir 
able associate of their college-days. Amongst 
them were Alfred Tennyson, James Spedding, 
William Bodham Donne, John Mitchell Kem- 


ble, and William Makepeace Thackeray; and 
8 


Biographical Preface 


their long friendship has been touchingly 
referred to by the Laureate in dedicating his 
last poem to the memory of Edward Fitz- 


” our author’s earliest 


gerald. ‘ Euphranor, 
printed work, affords a curious picture of his 
academic life and associations. Its substan- 
tial reality is evident beneath the thin disguise 
of the symbolical or classical names which he 
gives to the personages of the colloquy; and 
the speeches which he puts into his own 
mouth are full of the humorous gravity, the 
whimsical and kindly philosophy, which re- 
mained his distinguishing characteristics till 
the end. This book was first published in 
18513; a second and a third edition were 
printed some years later; all anonymous, and 
each of the latter two differing from its prede 
cessor by changes in the text which were nof¢ 


indicated on the title-pages. 
9 


h 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


«‘Kuphranor ” furnishes a good many char 
acterizations which would be useful for any 
writer treating upon Cambridge society in the 
third decade of this century. Kenelm Digby, 
the author of the “Broadstone of Honour,” 
had left Cambridge before the time when 
Euphranor held his “dialogue,” but he is 
picturesquely recollected as “a grand swarthy 
fellow who might have stepped out of the 
«canvas of some knightly portrait in his father’s 
hall—perhaps the living image of one sleeping 
under some cross-legged efigzes in the church.” 
In “ Euphranor,” it is easy to discover the 
earliest phase of the unconquerable attach- 
ment which Fitzgerald entertained for his col- 
lege and his life-long friends, and which 
induced him in later days to make frequent 
visits to Cambridge, renewing and refreshing 


the old ties of custom and friendship. In 
ta 


Biographical Preface 


fact, his disposition was affectionate to a fault, 
and he betrayed his consciousness of weak- 
ness in that respect by referring playfully at 
times to “a certain natural lubricity ” which 
he attributed to the Irish character, and pro- 
fessed to discover especially in himself. This 
amiability of temper endeared him to many 
friends of totally dissimilar tastes and quali- 
ties; and, by enlarging his sympathies, enabled 
him to enjoy the fructifying influence of stud- 
ies pursued in communion with scholars more 
profound than himself, but less gifted with 
the power of expression. One of the younger 
Cambridge men with whom he became inti- 
mate during his periodical pilgrimages to the 
university, was Edward B. Cowell, a man of 
the highest attainment in Oriental learning, 
who resembled Fitzgerald himself in the pos: 


session of a warm and genial heart and the 
il 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


most unobtrusive modesty. From Cowell hg 
could easily learn that the hypothetical affinity 
between the names of Erin and Iran belonged 
to an obsolete stage of etymology; but the 
attraction of a far-fetched theory was replaced 
by the charm of reading Persian poetry in 
companionship with his young friend, who 
was equally competent to enjoy and to analyze 
the beauties of a literature that formed a por- 
tion of his regular studies. They read to: 
gether the poetical remains of Khayyam—a 
choice of reading which sufficiently indicates 
the depth and range of Mr. Cowell’s knowl- 
edge. Omar Khayyam, although not quite 
forgotten, enjoyed in the history of Persiay 
literature a celebrity like that of Occleve and 
Gower in our own. In the many Zazkirdt 
(memoirs or memorials) of Poets, he was mens 


tioned and quoted with esteem; but his poems 
12 


Biographical Preface 


labouring as they did under the original sin ol 
heresy and atheism, were seldom looked at, 
and, from lack of demand on the part of 
readers, had become rarer than those of most 
other writers since the days of Firdausi. 
European scholars knew little of his works 
beyond his Arabic treatise on Algebra, and 
Mr. Cowell may be said to have disentombed 
his poems from oblivion. Now, thanks to the 
fine taste of that scholar, and to the transmut- 
ing genius of Fitzgerald, no Persian poet is so 
well known in the western world as Abu-’l- 
fatv’h Omar son of Ibrahim the Tentmaker of 
Naishaptir, whose manhood synchronizes with 
the Norman conquest of England, and who 
took for his poetic name (¢akhallus) the desig: 
nation of his father’s trade (Khayydm). The 
“ Rubda’iyyat” (Quatrains) do not compose a 


single poem divided into a certain number of 
“ws 


Rubdiyat of Omar Khayyam 


stanzas; there is no continuity of plan in them, 
and each stanza is a distinct thought ex: 
pressed in musical verse. ‘There is no other 
element of unity in them than the genera 
tendency of the Epicurean idea, and the arbi- 
trary divan form by which they are grouped 
according to the alphabetical arrangement of 
the final letters; those in which the rhymes 
end in @ constituting the first division, those 
with 4 the second, and soon, The peculiar 
attitude towards religion and the old questions 
of fate, immortality, the origin and the destiny 
of man, which educated thinkers have as- 
éumed in the present age of Christendom, is 
found admirably foreshadowed in the fantastic 
verses of Khayyam, who was no more of a 
Mohammedan than many of our best writers 
are Christians. His philosophical and Hora 


tian fancies—graced as they are by the charms 
14 


Biographical Dreface 


of a lyrical expression equal to that of Horace, 
and a vivid brilliance of imagination to which 
the Roman poet could make no claim—exer- 
cised a powerful influence upon Fitzgerald’s 
mind, and coloured his thoughts to such a 
degree that even when he oversteps the largest 
licence allowed to a translator, his phrases 
reproduce the spirit and manner of his origi- 
- nal with a nearer approach to perfection than 
would appear possible. It is usually supposed 
that there is more of Fitzgerald than of Khay- 
yam in the English “ Rubda’iyyat,” and that 
the old Persian simply afforded themes for the 
Anglo-Irishman’s display of poetic power; but 
nothing could be further from the truth. The 
French translator, J. B. Nicolas, and the Eng- 
lish one, Mr. Whinfield, supply a closer 
mechanical reflection of the sense in each 


separate stanza; but Mr. Fitzgerald has, in 
Ke 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


some instances, given a version equally close 
and exact; in others, rejointed scattered 
phrases from more than one stanza of his 
original, and thus accomplished a feat of mar- 
vellous poetical transfusion. He frequently 
turns literally into English the strange out- 
landish imagery which Mr. Whinfield thought 
necessary to replace by more intelligible 
banalities, and in this way the magic of his 
genius has successfully transplanted into the 
garden of English poesy exotics that bloom | 
like native flowers. 

One of Mr. Fitzgerald’s Woodbridge friends 
was Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, with 
whom he maintained for many years the most 
intimate and cordial intercourse, and whose 
daughter Lucy he married. He wrote the 
memoir of his friend’s life which appeared in 


the posthumous volume of Barton’s poems 
16 


Biographical Preface 


The story of his married life was a short one. 
With all the overflowing amiability of his 
nature, there were mingled certain peculiari- 
ties or waywardnesses which were more suit- 
able to the freedom of celibacy than to the 
staidness of matrimonial life. A separation 
took place by mutual agreement, and Fitz- 
gerald behaved in this circumstance with the 
generosity and unselfishness which were ap- 
parent in all his whims no less than in his 
more deliberate actions. Indeed, his entire 
career was marked by an unchanging good- 
ness of heart and a genial kindliness; and no 
one could complain of having ever endured 
hurt or ill-treatment at his hands. His pleas- 
ures were innocent and simple. Amongst the 
more delightful, he counted the short coasting 
trips, occupying no more than a day or two at 


a time, which he used to make in his own 
4 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


yacht from Lowestoft, accompanied only by 4 
crew of two men, and such a friend as Cowell, 
with a large pastry and a few bottles of wine 
to supply their material wants. It is needless 
to say that books were also put into the cabin, 
and that the symposia of the friends were thus 
brightened by communion with the minds of 
the great departed. Fitzgerald’s enjoyment 
of gnomic wisdom enshrined in words of ex- 
quisite propriety was evinced by the fre- 
quency with which he used to read Mon- 
taigne’s essays and Madame de Sévigné’s 
letters, and the various works from which he 
extracted and published his collection of wise 
saws entitled “Polonius.” This taste was 
allied to a love for what was classical and cor- 
rect in literature, by which he was also enabled 
to appreciate the prim and formal muse of 


Crabbe, in whose grandson’s house he died. 
18 


Biographical Preface 


His second printed work was the ‘“ Polo 
nius,” already referred to, which appeared in 
1852. It exemplifies his favourite reading, 
being a collection of extracts, sometimes short 
proverbial phrases, sometimes longer pieces of 
characterization or reflection, ee under 
abstract headings. He occasionally quotes 
Dr. Johnson, for whom he entertained sincere 
admiration; but the ponderous and artificial 
fabric of Johnsonese did not please him like 
the language of Bacon, Fuller, Sir Thomas 
Browne, Coleridge, whom he cites frequently. 
A disproportionate abundance of wise words 
was drawn from Carlyle; his original views, 
his forcible sense, and the friendship with 
which Fitzgerald regarded him, having appar- 
ently blinded the latter to the ungainly style 
and ungraceful mannerisms of the Chelsea 


sage. (It was Thackeray who first made them 
19 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


personally acquainted forty years ago; and 
Fitzgerald remained always loyal to his first 
instincts of affection and admiration.1) ‘“ Po. 
lonius” also marks the period of his earliest. 
attention to Persian studies, as he quotes in it 
the great Sufi poet Jalal-ud-din-Rumi, whose 
“Masnavi” has lately been translated into 
English by Mr. Redhouse, but whom Fitz- 
gerald can only have seen in the original, 


He, however, spells the name /a//aladin, an 


1 The close relation that subsisted between Fitz 
gerald and Carlyle has lately been made patent by an 
article in the Aistorical Review upon the Squire 
papers,—those celebrated documents purporting to be 
contemporary records of Cromwell’s time,—which 
were accepted by Carlyle as genuine, but which other 
scholars have asserted from internal evidence to be 
modern forgeries. However the question may be 
decided, the fact which concerns us here is that our 
poet was the negotiator between Mr. Squire and 
Carlyle, and that his correspondence with the latter 
upon the subject reveals the intimate nature of theif 
acquaintance. 

20 


Biographical Preface 


incorrect form of which he could not have 
been guilty at the time when he produced 
Omar Khayyam, and which thus betrays that 
he had not long been engaged with Irani liter- 
ature. He was very fond of Montaigne’s 
essays, and of Pascal’s ‘“‘ Pensées”; but his 
“ Polonius”’ reveals a sort of dislike and con- 
tempt for Voltaire. Amongst the Germans, 
Jean Paul, Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt, 
and August Wilhelm von Schlegel attracted 
him greatly; but he seems to have read little 
German, and probably only quoted transla- 
tions. His favourite motto was “ Plain Living 
ind High Thinking,” and he expresses great 
reverence for all things manly, simple, and 
true. The laws and institutions of England 
were, in his eyes, of the highest value and 
sacredness; and whatever Irish sympathies he 


had would never have diverted his affectiong 
2I 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


from the Union to Home Rule. This is 
strongly illustrated by some original lines of 
blank verse at the end of “ Polonius,” annexed 
to his quotation, under ‘“Atsthetics,” of the 
words in which Lord Palmerston eulogized 
Mr. Gladstone for having devoted his Neapoli- 
tan tour to an inspection of the prisons. 
Fitzgerald’s next printed work was a trans- 
Jation of Six Dramas of Calderon, published 
in 1853, which was unfavourably received at 
the time, and consequently withdrawn by him 
from circulation. His name appeared on the 
title-page,—a concession to publicity which 
was so unusual with him that it must have 
been made under strong pressure from his 
friends. The book is in nervous blank verse, 
a mode of composition which he handled with 
great ease and skill. There is no waste of 


power in diffuseness and no employment of 
22 


Biographical Preface 


unnecessary epithets. It gives the impression 
of a work of the Shakespearian age, and 
reveals a kindred felicity, strength, and direct- 
ness of language. It deserves to rank with 
his best efforts in poetry, but its ill-success 
made him feel that the publication of his name 
was an unfavourable experiment, and he never 
again repeated it. His great modesty, how- 
ever, would sufficiently account for this shy- 
ness. Of “Omar Khayyam,” even after the 
little book had won its way to general esteem, 
he used to say that the suggested addition of 
his name on the title would imply an assump- 
tion of importance which he considered that 
his “transmogrification”’ of the Persian poet 
did not possess. 

Fitzgerald’s conception of a_translator’s 
privilege is well set forth in the prefaces of 


his versions from Calderon, and the “ Aga: 
23 


Rubdaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


memnon” of A‘schylus. He maintained that, 
in the absence of the perfect poet, who shall 
re-create in his own language the body and 
soul of his original, the best system is that of 
a paraphrase conserving the spirit of the 
author,—a sort of literary metempsychosis. 
Calderon, A%schylus, and Omar Khayyam 
were all treated with equal licence, so far as 
form is concerned,—the last, perhaps, the 
most arbitrarily; but the result is not unsatis- 
factory as having given us perfect English 
poems instinct with the true flavour of their 
prototypes. ‘The Persian was probably some- 
what more Horatian and less melancholy, the 
Greek a little less florid and mystic, the 
Spaniard more lyrical and fluent, than their 
metaphrast has made them; but the essential 
spirit has not escaped in transfusion. Only # 


man of singular gifts could have performed 
24 


Biographical Preface 


che achievement, and these works attest Mr. 
Fitzgerald’s right to rank amongst the finest 
poets of the century. About the same time as 
he printed his Calderon, another set of trans- 
lations from the same dramatist was published 
by the late D. F. MacCarthy ; a scholar whose 
acquaintance with Castilian literature was 
much deeper than Mr. Fitzgerald’s, and who 
also possessed poetical abilities of no mean 
order, with a totally different sense of the 
translator’s duty. The popularity of Mac- 
Carthy’s versions has been considerable, and 
as an equivalent rendering of the original in 
sense and form his work is valuable. Span- 
iards familiar with the English language rate 
its merit highly; but there can be little ques- 
tion of the very great superiority of Mr. Fitz- 
gerald’s work as a contribution to English 


literature. It is indeed only from this point 
25 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khbayydm 


of view that we should regard all the literary 
labours of our author. They are English 
poetical work of fine quality, dashed with a 
pleasant outlandish flavour which heightens 
their charm; and it is as English poems, not 
as translations, that they have endeared them- 
selves even more to the American English 
than to the mixed Britons of England. 

It was an occasion of no small moment to 
Mr. Fitzgerald’s fame, and to the intellectual 
gratification of many thousands of readers 
when he took his little packet of “‘ Ruba’iyyat” 
to Mr. Quaritch in the latter part of the year 
1858. It was printed as a small quarto pamph- 
let, bearing the publisher’s name but not the 
author’s; and although apparently a complete 
failure at first,—a failure which Mr. Fitzgerald 
regretted less on his own account than on 


that of his publisher, to whom he had gener 
26 


Biographical Preface 


ousfy made a present of the book,—received, 
nevertheless, a sufficient distribution by being 
quickly reduced from the price of five shillings 
and placed in the box of cheap books marked 
a penny each. Thus forced into circulation, 
the two hundred copies which had been printed 
were soon exhausted. Among the buyers were 
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Mr. Swinburne, Cap- 
tain (now Sir Richard) Burton, and Mr. 
William Simpson, the accomplished artist of 
the ///ustrated London News. ‘The influence 
exercised by the first three, especially by Ros- 
setti, upon a clique of young men who have 
since grown to distinction, was sufficient to 
attract observation to the singular beauties of 
the poem anonymously translated from the 
Persian. Most readers had no possible op: 
portunity of discovering whether it was a 


disguised original or an actual translation ;—~ 
27 


Rubdiydt of Omar Kbayy4m 


even Captain Burton enjoyed probably but 
little chance of seeing a manuscript of the 
Persian “ Ruba’iyyat.” The Oriental imagery 
and allusions were too thickly scattered through- 
out the verses to favour the notion that they 
could be the original work of an Englishman; 
yet it was shrewdly suspected by most of the 
appreciative readers that the “translator ” was 
substantially the author and creator of the 
poem. Inthe refuge of his anonymity, Fitz- 
gerald derived an innocent gratification from 
the curiosity that was aroused on all sides. 
After the first edition had disappeared, in- 
quiries for the little book became frequent, and 
in the year 1868 he gave the MS. of his second 
edition to Mr. Quaritch, and the “ Ruba’iyyat ” 
came into circulation once more, but with 
several alterations and additions by which the 


number of stanzas was somewhat increased 
28 


Biographical Preface 


beyond the original seventy-five. Most of the 
changes were, as might have been expected, 
improvements; but in some instances the 
author’s taste or caprice was at fault,—notably 
in the first Ruwba’zy. His fastidious desire to 
avoid anything that seemed darvogue or unnat- 
ural, or appeared like plagiarism, may have 
influenced him; but it was probably because 
he had already used the idea in his rendering 
of Jami’s “ Salaman,” that he sacrificed a fine 
and novel piece of imagery in his first stanza 
and replaced it by one of much more ordinary 
character. If it were from a dislike to per- 
vert his original too largely, he had no need to 
be so. scrupulous, since he dealt on the whole 
with the “ Ruba’iyyat ” as though he had the 
licence of absolute authorship, changing, trans- 
posing, and manipulating the substance of the 


Persian quatrains with singular freedom. The 
29 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


vogue of “old Omar” (as he would affectien 
ately call his work) went on increasing, and 
American readers took it up with eagerness. 
In those days, the mere mention of Omar 
Khayyam between two strangers meeting for- 
tuitously acted like a sign of freemasonry and 
established frequently a bond of friendship. 
Some curious instances of this have been re- 
lated. A remarkable feature of the Omar-cult 
in the United States was the circumstance that 
single individuals bought numbers of copies 
for gratuitous distribution before the book was 
reprinted in America. Its editions have been 
relatively numerous, when we consider how 
restricted was the circle of readers who could 
understand the peculiar beauties of the work. 
A third edition appeared in 1872, with some 
’ further alterations, and may be regarded as 


virtually the author’s final revision, for if 
30 


Biographical Preface 


aardly differs at all from the text of the fourth 
edition, which appeared in 1879. This last 
formed the first portion of a volume entitled 
* Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; and the Sala- 
man and Absal of Jamf; rendered into English 
verse.” The “Salaman” (which had already 
been printed in separate form in 1856) isa 
poem chiefly in blank verse, interspersed 
with various metres (although it is all in one 
measure in the original) embodying a love 
story of mystic significance; for Jamf was, 
unlike Omar Khayyam, a true Sufi, and indeed 
differed in other respects, his celebrity as a 
pious Mussulman doctor being equal to his 
fame as a poet. He lived in the fifteenth cen- 
tury, in a period of literary brilliance and 
decay; and the rich exuberance of his poetry, 
full of far-fetched conceits, involved eypres- 


aions, overstrained imagery and false taste. 
Bz 


Rubdiydt of Omar Khayyam 


offers a stong contrast to the simpler and more 
forcible language of Khayyam. There is little 
use of Arabic in the earlier poet; he preferred 
the vernacular speech to the mongrel language 
which was fashionable among the heirs of the 
Saracen conquerors; but Jami’s composition 
is largely embroidered with Arabic. 

Mr, Fitzgerald had from his early days 
been thrown into contact with the Crabbe 
family; the Reverend George Crabbe (the 
poet’s grandson) was an intimate friend of his, 
and it was on a visit to Morton Rectory that 
Fitzgerald died. As we know that friendship 
has power to warp the judgment, we shall not 
probably be wrong in supposing that his 
enthusiastic admiration for Crabbe’s poems 
was not the product of sound, impartial criti- 
cism. He attempted to reintroduce them te 


the world by publishing a little volume of 
32 


Biographical Preface 


“Readings from Crabbe,” produced in tha 
last year of his life, but without success. A 
different fate awaited his “ Agamemnon: a 
tragedy taken from /éschylus,” which was 
first printed privately by him, and afterwards 
published with alterations in 1876, It is a 
very free rendering from the Greek, and full 
of a poetical beauty which is but partly assign- 
able to A‘schylus. Without attaining to any: 
thing like the celebrity and admiration which 
have followed Omar Khayyam, the “ Agamen. 
non” has achieved much more than a succes 
d’estime. Mr. Fitzgerald’s renderings from 
the Greek were not confined to this one essay; 
he also translated the two C&dipus dramas of 
Sophocles, but left them unfinished in manu 
script till Prof. Eliot Norton had a sight of 
them about seven or eight years ago and 


urged him to complete his work. When this 
33 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


was done, he had them svt in type, but only a 
very few proofs can have been struck off, as it 
seems that, at least in England, no more than 
one or two copies were sent out by the author. 
In a similar way he printed translations of 
two of Calderon’s plays not included in the 
published “ Six Dramas ”—namely, * La Vida 
es Suefio,” and “ El Magico Prodigioso ” (both 
ranking among the Spaniard’s finest work); 
but they also were withheld from the public 
and all but half a dozen friends. < 

When his old boatman died, about ten years 
ago, he abandoned his nautical exercises and 
gave up his yacht for ever. During the last 
few years of his life, he divided his time 
between Cambridge, Crabbe’s house, and hia 
own home at Little Grange, near Woodbridge 
where he received occasional visits fro 


friends and relatives, 
ps 


Biographical Preface 


This edition of the “Omar Khayy4m”™ is a 
modest memorial of one of the most modest 
men who have enriched English literature with 
poetry of distinct and permanent value. His 
best epitaph is found in Tennyson's “ Tiresias 
and other poems,” published immediately after 
our author’s quiet exit from life, in 1883, in 
the seventy-fifth year of his age. 

M, K. 


To Omar Khayyam. 


Wise Omar, do the Southern Breezes fling, 
Above your Grave, at ending of the Spring, 
The Snowdrift of the petals of the Rose, 


The wild white Roses you were wont to sing! 


Far in the South I know a Land divine,! 
And there is many a Saint and many a Shrine, 
And over all the shrines the Blossom blows 


Of Roses that were dear to you as wine, 


You were a Saint of unbelieving days, 

Liking your Life and happy in men’s Praise; 
Enough for you the Shade beneath the Bough, 

Enough to watch the wild World go its Ways. 


1 The hills above San Remo, where rose-bushes are 
planted by the shrines, Omar desired that his grave 
might be where the wind would scatter rose teaver 


over it, 
36 


And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before 
The Tavern shouted—‘‘ Open then the Door!” 


Page 76 


To Omar Khayyam 


Dreadless and hopeless thou of Heaven or Hell, 
Careless of Words thou hadst not Skill to spell, 
Content to know not all thou knowest now, 
What’s Death? Doth any Pitcher dread the 
Well? 


The Pitchers we, whose Maker makes them ill, 

Shall He torment them if they chance to spill? 
Nay, like the broken potsherds are we cast 

Forth and forgotten,—and what will be will! 


So still were we, before the months began 

That rounded us and shaped us into Man. 
So still we sZa// be, surely, at the last, 

Dreamless, untouched of Blessing or of Ban! 


Ah, strange it seems that this thy common 
thought— 

How ali things have been, ay, and shall be 
nought— 

Was ancient Wisdom in thine ancient East, 


In those old Days when Senlac fight was fought, 
37 


Rubaiyat of Omar Kbayysm 


Which gave our England for a captive Land 
To pious Chiefs of a believing Band, 

A gift to the Believer from the Priest, 
Tossed from the Holy to the blood-red Hand !! 


Yea, thou wert singing when that Arrow clave 

Through helm and brain of him who could 
not save 

His England, even of Harold, Godwin’s son; 


The high tide murmurs by the Hero’s grave 18 


And ¢hou wert wreathing Roses—who can 
tell ?— 
Or chanting for some girl that pleased thee 
well, 
Or satst at wine in Naishapuir, when dun 


The twilight veiled the field where Harold fell! 


1Qmar was contemporary with the battle of 
Hastings. 
3 Per mandata Ducis, Rex hic, Heralde, quiescis, 
Lt custos maneas littoris et pelagi. 
ss 


Co Omar Khayyam 


The salt Sea-waves above him rage and roam} 
Along the white Walls of his guarded Home 
No Zephyr stirs the Rose, but o’er the wave 


The wild Wind beats the Breakers into Foam! 


And dear to him, as Roses were to thee, 
Rings long the Roar of Onset of the Sea; 
The Swan’s Path of his Fathers is his grave: 


His sleep, methinks, is sound as thine can ba, 


His was the Age of Faith, when all the West 
Looked to the Priest for torment or for rest; 
And thou wert living then, and didst not heed 
The Saint who banned thee or the Saint who 
blessed ! 


Ages of Progress! These eight hundred years 
Hath Europe shuddered with her hopes or fears, 
And now !—she listens in the wilderness 


To ¢iee, and half believeth what she hears} 
39 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


Hadst ¢Zou Tue Secret? Ah, and who may tell? 
« An hour we have,” thou saidst. “Ah, waste 
it well!” 
An hour we have, and yet Eternity 
Looms o’er us, and the thought of Heaven or 
Hell! 


Nay, we can never be as wise as thou, 
O idle singer ’neath the blossomed bough. 
Nay, and we cannot be content to die. 
We cannot shirk the questions ‘¢ Where ?” and 
“ How?” 


Ah, not from learned Peace and gay Content 

Shall we of England go the way he went— 
The Singer of the Red Wine and the Rose—: 

Nay, otherwise than 47s our Day is spent! 


Serene he dwelt in fragrant Naishapur, 
But we must wander while the Stars endure. 
He knew THE SECRET: we have none that 
knows, 
No Man so sure as Omar once was sure ! 


ANDREW LANG 
40 


But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, 
And many a Garden by the Water blows. 


Page 76 


Omar Khayyam 
the Hstronomer-Poe 
oF Persia 


nN 
J 


He ee 


Omar Kbayyam 
Che Hstronomer-Poet 
of Persia 


By Epwarp FITzGERALD 


Omar KuayyAdm was born at Naishapur in 
Khorassan in the latter half of our Eleventh, 
and died within the First Quarter of our 
Twelfth Century. The Slender Story of his 
Life is curiously twined about that of two 
other very considerable Figures in their Time 
and Country: one of whom tells the Story of 
all Three. This was Nizam-ul-Mulk, Vizyr to 
Alp Arslan the Son, and Malik Shah the 

43 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayy4m 


Grandson, of Toghrul Beg the Tartar, wha 
had wrested Persia from the feeble successor 
of Mahmud the Great, and founded that Selju- 
kian Dynasty which finally roused Europe 
into the Crusades. This Nizdm-ul-Mulk, in 
his Wasiyat—or TZestament—which he wrote 
and left as a Memorial for future Statesmen— 
relates the following, as quoted in the Calcutta 
Review, No. 59, from Mirkhond’s History of 
the Assassins. 

“¢One of the greatest of the wise men of 
Khorassan was the Imam Mowaffak of Naish- 
apur, a man highly honoured and _ rever- 
enced,—may God rejoice his soul; his illus- 
trious years exceeded eighty-five, and it was 
the universal belief that every boy who read 
the Koran or studied the traditions in his 
presence, would assuredly attain to honour 


and happiness. For this cause did my father 
44 | 


Omar Khayyam, the Poct 


send me from Tus to Naishapur with Abd-us- 
samad, the doctor of law, that I might employ 
myself in study and learning under the guid. 
ance of that illustrious teacher. Towards me 
he ever turned an eye of favour and kindness, 
and as his pupil I felt for him extreme affec 
tion and devotion, so that I passed four years 
in his service. When J first came there, I 
found two other pupils of mine own age newly 
arrived, Hakim Omar Khayyam and the ill 
fated Ben Sabbah. Both were endowed with 
sharpness of wit and the highest natural 
powers; and we three formed a close friend: 
ship together. When the Imam rose from his 
lectures, they used to join me, and we repeated 
to each other the lessons we had heard. Now 
Omar was a native of Naishaptr, while Hasan 
Ben Sabbah’s father was one Ali, a man ef 


austere life and practice, but heretical in his 
4§ 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


creed and doctrine. One day Hasan said to 
me and to Khayyam, “It is a universal belief 
that the pupils of the Imam Mowaffak wik 
attain to fortune. Now, even if we a//7 do not 
attain thereto, without doubt one of us will; 
what then shall be our mutual pledge and 
bond?” We answered, “Be it what you 
please.” ‘ Well,” he said, “let us make a 
vow, that to whomsoever this fortune falls, he 
shail share it equally with the rest, and reserve 
no pre-eminence for himself.” ‘Be it so,” we 
both replied, and on those terms we mutually 
pledged our words. Years rolled on, and I 
went from Khorassan to Transoxiana, and 
wandered to Ghazni and Cabul; and when I 
returned I was invested with office, and rose 
to be administrator of affairs during the 
Sultanate of Sultan Alp Arslan.’ 


*« Fle goes on to state, that years passed by, 
46 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


and both his old school-friends found him out, 
and came and claimed a share in his good 
fortune, according to the school-day vow. 
The Vizier was generous and kept his word. 
Hasan demanded a place in the government, 
which the Sultan granted at the Vizier’s re- 
quest; but discontented with a gradual rise, 
he plunged into the maze of intrigue of an 
oriental court, and, failing in a base attempt 
to supplant his benefactor, he was disgraced 
and fell. After many mishaps and wander- 
ings, Hasan became the head of the Persian 
sect of the /smaiiians,—a party of fanatics 
who had long murmured in obscurity, but rose 
to an evil eminence under the guidance of his 
strong and evil will, In a.p. 1ogo, he seized 
the castle of Alamtt, in the province of Riid- 
bar, which lies in the mountainous tract south 


of the Caspian Sea; and it was from this 
47 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


mountain home he obtained that evil celebrity 
among the Crusaders as the OLD MAN OF 
THE MOUNTAINS, and spread terror 
through the Mohammedan world; and it is yet 
disputed whether the word Assassin, which they 
have left in the language of modern Europe as 
their dark memorial, is derived from the hashish, 
or opiate of hemp-leaves (the Indian d/ang), with 
which they maddened themselves to the sullen 
pitch of Oriental desperation, or from the name 
of the founder of the dynasty, whom we have 
seen in his quiet collegiate days, at Naishapuir. 
One of the countless victims of the Assassin’s 
dagger was Nizdm-ul-Mulk himself, the old 
school-boy friend.} 

“Omar Khayy4m also came to the Vizier 
‘o claim his share; but nct to ask for title or 


1 Some of Omar's Rubdaiyat warn us of the danger of 
Greatness, the instability of Fortune, and while advo- 
tating Charity to all Men, recommending us to be toe 

48 


A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou— 
Page 79 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


office. ‘The greatest boon you can confer on 
me,’ he said, ‘is to let me live in a corner 
under the shadow of your fortune, to spread 
wide the advantages of Science, and pray for 
your long life and prosperity.’ The Vizier tells 
us, that, when he found Omar was really sincere 
in his refusal, he pressed him no further, but 
granted him a yearly pension of 1,200 mithkdls 
of gold, from the treasury of Naishapuir. 

“ At Naishaptr thus lived and died Omat 
Khayyam, ‘busied,’ adds the Vizier, ‘in win. 
ning knowledge of every kind, and especially 
in Astronomy, wherein he attained to a very 
high pre-eminence. Under the Sultanate of 
Malik Shah, he came to Merv, and attained 


intimate with none. Attar makes Nizam-ul-Mulk use 
the very words of his friend Omar [Rub. xxviii.} 
“When Nizam-ul-Mulk was in the Agony (of Death) 
he said, ‘O God! I am passing away in the hand of 
the Wind.’” 


49 


Rubdiyat of Omar Khayyam 


great praise for his proficiency in science, 
and the Sultan showered favours upon him.’ 
“When Malik Shah determined to reform 
the calendar, Omar was one of the eight 
learned men employed to do it; the result was 
the /aléii era (so called from /a/é/-ud-din, one 
of the king’s names)—‘a computation of time,’ 
says Gibbon, ‘which surpasses the Julian, and 
approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian 
style.’ He is also the author of some astro- 
nomical tables, entitled ‘ Zifji-Malikshahf,’ and 
the French have lately republished and trans- 
lated an Arabic Treatise of his on Algebra. 
“His Takhallus or poetical name (Khay- 
yam) signifies a Tent-maker, and he is said to 
have at one time exercised that trade, perhaps 
before Niz4m-ul-Mulk’s generosity raised him 
to independence. Many Persian poets simi: 


larly derive their names from their occupa: 
50 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


tions; thus we have Attar, ‘a druggist,’ Assda 
‘an oil presser,’ etc.1 Omar himself alludes ta 


his name in the following whimsical lines :— 
‘Khayyam, wno stitched the tents of science, 
Has fallen in grief’s furnace and been suddenly burned; 


The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life, 
And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing.’ 


“We have only one more anecdote to give 
of his Life, and that relates to the close; it is 
told in the anonymous preface which is some- 
times prefixed to his poems; it has been 
printed in the Persian in the Appendix to 
Hyde’s Veterum Fersarum Religio, p. 4993 
and D’Herbelot alludes to it in his Biblio- 
théque, under Khzam :-—? 


1Though all these, like our Smiths, Archers, Millers, 
Fletchers, etc., may simply retain the Surname of a 
hereditary calling. 


2“ Philosophe Musulman qui a vécu en Odeur de 
Sainteté dans sa Religion, vers la Fin du premier et le 
Commencement du second Siécle,” no part of which, 
except the “ Philosophe,” can apply to our Khayyam 


5! 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


“Tt is written in the chronicles of the 
ancients that this King of the Wise, Omar 
Khayyam, died at Naishapur in the year of 
the Hegira 517 (a.D. 1123); in science he was 
unrivalled—the very paragon of his age. 
Khwajah Nizami of Samarcand, who was one 
of his pupils, relates the following story: “TI 
often used to hold conversations with my 
teacher, Omar Khayyam, in a garden; and 
yne day he said to me, ‘ My tomb shall be in 
a spot where the north wind may scatter roses 
over it? I wondered at the words he spake, 
but I knew that his were no idle words.! Years 


1The Rashness of the Words, according to D’Her- 
belot, consisted in being so opposed to those in the 
Koran: ‘No Man knows where he shall die! ’—This 
story of Omar reminds me of another so naturally— 
and when one remembers how wide of his humble 
mark the noble sailor aimed—so pathetically told “by 
Captain Cook—not by Doctor Hawkesworth—in his 
Second Voyage (i. 374) When leaving Ulietea, 
“Oreo’s last request was for me to return, When he 


§2 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


after, when I chanced to visit Naishdpur, I 
went to his final resting-place, and lo! it was 
just outside a garden, and trees laden with 
fruit stretched their boughs over the garden 
wall, and dropped their flowers upon his tomb, 
so that the stone was hidden under them.”’” 

Thus far—without fear of Trespass—from 
the Calutta Review. The writer of it, on 
reading in India this story of Omar’s Grave, 
was reminded, he says, of Cicero’s Account of 


finding Archimedes’ Tomb at Syracuse, buried 


saw he could not obtain that promise. *e asked the 
name of my J/arai (burying-place). As strange a 
question as this was, I hesitated not a moment to tell 
him ‘ Stepney,’ the parish in which I live when in Lon- 
don. I was made to repeat it several times over till 
they could pronounce it; and then ‘Stepney Marai no 
Toote’ was echoed through an hundred mouths at 
ence. I afterwards found the same question had been 
put to Mr. Forster by a man on shore; but he gave a 
different, and indeed more proper answer, by saying, 
‘No man who used the sea could say where he should 
be buried.’ ” 
53 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


in grass and weeds. I think Thorwaldsen 
desired to have roses grow over him; a 
wish religiously fulfilled for him to the. 
present day, I believe. However, to return 
to Omar. 

Though the Sultan “ shower’d Favours upon 
him,” Omar’s Epicurean Audacity of Thought 
and Speech caused him to be regarded as- 
kance in his own Time and Country. He is 
said to have been especially hated and dreaded 
by the Stifis, whose Practice he ridiculed, and 
whose Faith amounts to little more than his 
own, when stript of the Mysticism and formal 
recognition of Islamism under which Omar 
would not hide. Their Poets, including HAfiz, 
who are (with the exception of Firdausi) the 
most considerable in Persia, borrowed largely, 
indeed, of Omar’s material, but turning it to a 


mystical Use more convenient to Themselves 
54 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


and the People they addressed ; 4 People quite 
as quick of Doubt as of Belief; as keen of 
Bodily Sense as of Intellectual; and delight- 
ing in a cloudy composition of both, in which 
they could float luxuriously between Heaven 
and Earth, and this World and the Next, on 
the wings of a poetical expression, that might 
serve indifferently for either. Omar was too 
honest of Heart as well as of Head for this, 
Having failed (however mistakenly) of finding 
any Providence but Destiny, and any World 
but This, he set about making the most of it; 
preferring rather to soothe the Soul through 
the Senses into Acquiescence with Things as 
he saw them, than to perplex it with vain dis- 
quietude after what they might be. It has been 
seen, however, that his Worldly Ambition was 
not exorbitant; and he very likely takes a 


humorous or perverse pleasure in exalting the 
55 


Rubéiyst of Omar Khayy4in 


gratification of Sense above that of the Intel 
lect, in which he must have taken great 
delight, although it failed to answer the Ques 
tions in which he, in common with all men, 
was most vitally interested. 

For whatever Reason, however, Omar, as 
before said, has never been popular in his 
own Country, and therefore has been but 
scantily transmitted abroad. The MSS. of 
his Poems, mutilated beyond the average 
Casualties of Oriental Transcription, are sa 
rare in the East as scarce to have reacht 
Westward at all, in spite of all the acquisi- 
tions of Arms and Science. ‘There is no copy 
at the India House, none at the Bibliothéque 
Nationale of Paris. We know of but one in 
England: No. 140 of the Ouseley MSS. at the 
Bodleian, written at Shirdz, a.p. 1460. This 


contains but 13158 Rubdaiydt. One in the 
56 


Some for the Glories of This World; and some 
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come; 
Page 79 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


Asiatic Society’s Library at Calcutta (of which 
we have a Copy), contains (and yet incom. 
plete) 516, though swelled to that by all kinds 
of Repetition and Corruption. So Von Ham- 
mer speaks of 4s Copy as containing about 
. 200, while Dr. Sprenger catalogues the Luck- 
now MS. at double that number.t. The 
Scribes, too, of the Oxford and Calcutta MSS. 
seem to do their Work under a sort of Protest; 
each beginning with a Tetrastich (whether 
genuine or not), taken out of its alphabetical 
order; the Oxford with one of Apology; the 
Calcutta with one of Expostulation, supposed 
(says a Notice prefixed to the MS.) to have 


arisen from a Dream, in which Omar’s mother 


1 «Since this paper was written” (adds the Reviewer 
in a note), “we have met with a Copy of a very rare 
Edition, printed in Calcutta in 1836. This contains 
438 Tetrastichs, with an Appendix containing 54 
others not found in some MSS.” 


BY s 


Rubaiyat of Omar Kbayyam 


asked about his future fate. It may be 
rendered thus :— 
Oh Thou who burn’st in Heart for those who burn 
In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn; 
How long be crying, ‘Mercy on them, God!’ 
Why, who art Thou to teach, and He to learn?” 
The Bodleian Quatrain pleads Pantheism by 
way of Justification :— 
“Tf I myself upon a looser Creed 
Have loosely strung the Jewel of Good Deed, 


Let this one thing for my Atonement plead: 
That One for Two I never did mis-read.” 


The Reviewer,! to whom I owe the Partic- 
ulars of Omar’s Life, concludes his Review by 
comparing him with Lucretius, both as to 
natural Temper and Genius, and as acted 
upon by the Circumstances in which he lived. 
Both indeed were men of subtle, strong, and 
cultivated Intellect, fine Imagination, and 


1Professor Cowell. 


53 


Omar Khayyam, the Poct 


Hearts passionate for Truth and Justice ; wha 
justly revolted from their Country's false 
Religion, and false, or foolish, Devotion to it; 
but who fell short of replacing what they sub. 
verted by such better /ofe as others, with no 
better Revelation to guide them, had yet made 
a Law to themselves. Lucretius, indeed, with 
such material as Epicurus furnished, satisfied 
himself with the theory of a vast machine for- 
tuitously constructed, and acting by a Law 
that implied no Legislator; and so composing 
himself into a Stoical rather than Epicurean 
severity of Attitude, sat down to contemplate 
the mechanical Drama of the Universe which 
he was part Actor in; himself and all about 
him (as in his own sublime description of the 
Roman Theatre) discoloured with the lurid 
reflex of the Curtain suspended between the 


Spectator and the Sun. Omar, more desper 
59 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


ate, or more careless of any so complicated 
System as resulted in nothing but hopeless 
Necessity, flung his own Genius and Learning 
with a bitter or humorous jest into the general 
Ruin which their insufficient glimpses only 
served to reveal; and, pretending sensual 
pleasure as the serious purpose of Life, only 
diverted himself with speculative problems of 
Deity, Destiny, Matter and Spirit, Good and 
Evil, and other such questions, easier to start 
than to run down, and the pursuit of which 
becomes a very weary sport at last! 

With regard to the present ‘Translation. 
The original Rubaiyat (as, missing an Arabic 
Guttural, these Z¢¢rastichs are more musically 
called) are independent Stanzas, consisting 
each of four Lines of equal, though varied, 
Prosody; sometimes a// rhyming, but oftener 


(as here imitated) the third line a blank 
; 60 


Omar Khayydm, the Poet 


Somewhat as in the Greek Alcaic, where the 
penultimate line seems to litt and suspend the 
Wave that falls over in the last. As usual 
with such kina of Oriental Verse, the Rubai- 
yat follow one another according to Alphabetic 
Rhyme—a strange succession of Grave and 
Gay. Those here selected are strung into 
something of an Eclogue, with perhaps a less 
than equal proportion of the “Drink and 
make-merry,” which (genuine or not) recurs 
over-frequently in the Original. Either way, : 
the Result is sad enough: saddest perhaps 
when most ostentatiously merry: more apt to 
move Sorrow than Anger towards the old Tent 
maker, who, after vainly endeavouring to un: 
shackle his Steps from Destiny, and to catch 
some authentic Glimpse of To-morrow, fell 
back upon To-pay (which has outlasted so 


many To-morrows!) as the only Ground he 
Gs 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayydm 


had got to stand upon, however momentarily 


slipping from under his Feet. 


[From the Third Edition.] 


While the second Edition of this version 
of Omar was preparing, Monsieur Nicolas, 
French Consul at Resht, published a very 
careful and very good Edition of the Text, 
from a lithograph copy at Teheran, compris- 
ing 464 Rubdiyat, with translation and notes 
of his own. 

Mons. Nicolas, whose Edition has reminded 
me of several things, and instructed me in 
others, does not consider Omar to be the 
material Epicurean that I have literally taken 
him for, but a Mystic, shadowing the Deity 
under the figure of Wine, Wine-bearer, &c., as 
Hafiz is supposed to do; in short, a Sufi Poet 


like Hafiz and the rest. 
ha 


Omar Khayyam, the Poct 


I cannot see reason to alter my opinion, 
formed as it was more than a dozen years 
ago! when Omar was first shown me by one 
to whom I am indebted for all I know of 
Oriental, and very much other, literature. He 
admired Omar’s Genius so much, that he 
would gladly have adopted any such Interpre- 
tation of his meaning as Mons. Nicolas’ if he 
could.2 That he could not, appears by his 
Paper in the Calcutta Review already so 
largely quoted; in which he argues from the 
Poems themselves, as well as from what 
records remain of the Poet’s Life. 

And if more were needed to disprove Mons 
Nicolas’ Theory, there is the Biographical 

1 [This was written in 1868.] 

2 Perhaps would have edited the Poems himself 
some years ago, He may now as little approve of 


my Version on one side, as of Mons. Nicolas’ Theory 
on the other. 


63 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


Notice which he himself has drawn up in 
direct contradiction to the Interpretation of 
the Poems given in his Notes. (See pp. xili- 
xiv of his Preface.) Indeed I hardly knew 
poor Omar was so far gone till his Apologist 
informed me. For here we see that, whatever 
were the Wine that Hafiz drank and sang, the 
veritable Juice of the Grape it was which 
Omar used, not only when carousing with his 
friends, but (says Mons. Nicolas) in order to 
excite himself to that pitch of Devotion which 
‘thers reached by cries and “hurlemens.” 
And yet, whenever Wine, Wine-bearer, &c., 
occur in the text—which is often enough— 
Mons. Nicolas carefully annotates “ Dieu,” 
Ta Divinité,” &c.: so carefully indeed that 
one is tempted to think that he was indoctri- 
nated by the Sufi with whom he read the 
Poems. (Note to Rub. ii, p.8.) A Persian 
64 ; 


Look to the blowing Rose about us—' Lo, 
Laughing,’’ she says, ‘‘into the world | blow.” 
Page 79 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


would naturally wish to vindicate a distin- 
guished Countryman; and a Siifi to enrol him 
in his own sect, which already comprises all 
the chief Poets of Persia. 

What historical Authority has Mons. Nicolas 
to show that Omar gave himself up “avec 
passion 4 l’étude de la philosophie des Soufis”? 
(Preface, p. xiii.) The Doctrines of Panthe- 
ism, Materialism, Necessity, &c., were not 
peculiar to the Stifi; nor to Lucretius before 
them; nor to Epicurus before him; probably 
the very original Irreligion of Thinking men 
from the first; and very likely to be the spon- 
taneous growth of a Philosopher living in an 
Age of social and political barbarism, under 
shadow of one of the Two and Seventy Relig: 
ions supposed to divide the world. Von 
Hammer (according to Sprenger’s Oriental 


Catalogue) speaks of Omar as “a Free 
65 ) 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


thinker, and @ great opporent of Sufism”; 
perhaps because, while holding much of theit 
Doctrine, he would not pretend to any incon 
sistent severity of morals. Sir W. Ouseley 
has written a note to something of the same 
effect on the fly-leaf of the Bodleian MS. 
And in two Rubdaiyat of Mons. Nicolas’ own 
Edition Suf and Stfi are both disparagingly 
named. 

No doubt many of these Quatrains seem 
anaccountable unless mystically interpreted; 
but many more as unaccountable unless liter- 
ally. Were the Wine spiritual, for instance, 
how wash the body with it when dead? Why 
make cups of the dead clay to be filled with— 
“Ta Divinité”—by some succeeding Mystic? 
Mons. Nicolas himself is puzzled by some 
“bizarres” and “trop Orientales” allusions 


and images—‘d’une sensualité quelquefois 
66 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


révoltante ” indeed—which “les convenances" 
do not permit him to translate; but still which 
the reader cannot but refer to “La Divinité.”’! 
No doubt also many of the Quatrains in the 
Teheran, as in the Calcutta, Copies are spuri- 
ous; such Rudbdéiydt being the common form 
of Epigram in Persia. But this, at best, tells 


as much one way as another; nay, the Sufi, 


who may be considered the Scholar and Man 


1A Note to Quatrain 234 admits that, however clear 
the mystical meaning of such Images must be to 
Europeans, they are not quoted without “‘rougissant ” 
even by laymen in Persia—‘Quant aux termes de 
tendresse qui commencent ce quatrain, comme tant 
d’autres dans ce recueil, nos lecteurs, habitués main. 
tenant a4 l’étrangeté des expressions si souvent em: 
ployés par Khéyam pour rendre ses pensées sur 
Yamour divin, et 4 la singularité de ses images trop 
orientales, d’une sensualité quelquefois révoltante, 
n’auront pas de peine a se persuader qu’il s’agit de 
la Divinité, bien que cette conviction soit vivement 
discutée par les moullahs musulmans et méme par 
beaucoup de laiques, qui rougissent véritablement 
d’une pareille licence de leur compatriote a l’égard des 
thoses spirituelles.” 


67 


Rubatyat of Omar Khayyam 


of Letters in Persia, would be far more likely 
than the careless Epicure to interpolate what 
favours his own view of the Poet. I observe 
that very few of the more mystical Quatrains 
are in the Bodleian MS., which must be one 
of the oldest, as dated at Shiraz, a.H. 865, A.D. 
1460. And this, I think, especially distin- 
guishes Omar (I cannot help calling him by his 
—no, not Christian—familiar name) from all 
other Persian Poets: That, whereas with them 
the Poet is lost in his Song, the Man in Alle- 
gory and Abstraction; we seem to have the 
Man—the Zonhomme—Omar himself, with all 
his Humours and Passions, as frankly before 
us as if we were really at Table with him, after 
the Wine had gone round. 

I must say that I, for one, never wholly 
believed in the Mysticism of Hafiz. It does 


uot appear there was any danger in holding 
68 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


and singing Sufi Pantheism, so long as the 
Poet made his Salaam to Mohammed at the 
beginning and end of his Song. Under such 
conditions Jelaluddin, Jamf, Attar, and others 
sang; using Wine and Beauty indeed as 
Images to illustrate, not as a Mask to hide, 
the Divinity they were celebrating. Perhaps 
some Allegory less liable to mistake or abuse 
had been better among so inflammable a 
People: much more so when, as some think 
with Hafiz and Omar, the abstract is not only 
likened to, but identified with, the sensual 
Image; hazardous, if not to the Devotee him- 
self, yet to his weaker Brethren; and worse 
for the Profane in proportion as the Devotion 
of the Initiated grew warmer. And all for 
what? To be tantalized with Images of sen- 
sual enjoyment which must be renounced if 


one would approximate a God, who, according 
69 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


to the Doctrine, zs Sensual Matter as well as 
Spirit, and into whose Universe one expects 
unconsciously to merge after Death, without 
hope of any posthumous Beatitude in another 
world to compensate for all one’s self-denial in 
this. Lucretius’ blind Divinity certainly mer. 
ited, and probably got, as much self-sacrifice 
as this of the Sufi; and the burden of Omar’s 
Song—if not “Let us eat’”—is assuredly— 
‘Let us drink, for To-morrow we die!” And 
if Hafiz meant quite otherwise by a similar 
language, he surely miscalculated when he 
devoted his Life and Genius to so equivocal a 
Psalmody as, from his Day to this, has been 
said and sung by any rather than Spiritual 
Worshippers. 

However, as there is some traditional pre- 
sumption, and certainly the opinion of some 


learned men, in favour of Omar’s being a Suifi 
70 


How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp 
Abode his destin’d Hour, and went his way. 


Page 80 


Omar Khayyam, the Poet 


—and even something of a Saint—those whe 
please may so interpret his Wine and Cup- 
bearer. On the other hand, as there is far 
more historical certainty of his being a Phi- 
losopher, of scientific Insight and Ability far 
beyond that of the Age and Country he lived 
in; of such moderate worldly Ambition as 
becomes a Philosopher, and such moderate 
wants as rarely satisfy a Debauchee; other 
readers may be content to believe with me 
that, while the Wine Omar celebrates is simply 
the Juice of the Grape, he bragg’d more than 
he drank of it, in very defiance perhaps of 
that ‘Spiritual Wine which left its Votaries 
sunk in Hypocrisy or Disgust. 


71 


Rubdaiyat 
oF 
Omar Khayydm of Naishdpiir 


fourth Gdition 


Rubaiyat of 
Omar Kbayyam 


I 
WakE! For the Sun who scatter’d into flight 
The Stars before him from the Field of Night, 
Drives Night along with them from Heav’n, 
and strikes 
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light. 


II 


Before the phantom of False morning died, 
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried, 
“‘When all the Temple is prepared within, 


Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?” 
75 


Rubaiyat of Omar KhayySim 


III 


And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before 
The Tavern shouted—‘“ Open then the Door! 
You know how little while we have to stay, 


And, once departed, may return no more.” 


IV 
Now the New Year reviving old Desires 
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, 
Where the WuIT—E Hanp or Moses on the 
Bough 


Puts out, and Jesus from the ground suspires. 


Vv 
Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose 
And Jamshyd’s Sev’n-ring’d Cup where no 
one knows, 
But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, 


And many a Garden by the Water blows. 
36 


Ah! lean upon it lightly! for who knows 
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen! 


Page St 


j “i & 
n 
: a 
© 
' 
vy oat 
a ; 
\ 
, 
> 
* 
ft 
, * 
\ 
rs 
F t 
" 
a ~ mn; 


- Rubaiyat of Omar Kbayyam 


VI 
And David’s lips are lockt; but in divine 
High-piping Pehlevf, with ‘“‘Wine! Wine! 
Wine! 
Red Wine!”—the Nightingale cries to the 
Rose | 


That sallow cheek of hers t’ incarnadine. 


VII 
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring 
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling ; 
The Bird of Time has but a little way 
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing. 


VIII 
Whether at Naishaptr or Babylon, 
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, 
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by 
drop, 


The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one. 
77 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


IX. 


Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say; 
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? 
And this first Summer month that brings 
the Rose 
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away. 


x 


Well, let it take them! What have we to do 
With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosrt ? 

Let Zal and Rustum bluster as they will, 
Or Hatim call to Supper---heed not you. 


XI 
With me along the strip of Herbage strown 
That just divides the desert from the sown, 
Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot— 


And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne’ 
"8 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayy4am 


XII 
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and ‘Thou 
Beside me singing in the Wilderness— 


Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! 


XIII , 
Some for the Glories of this World; and 
some 
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come, 
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, 
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum! 


XIV 


Look to the blowing Rose about 1s—* Lo, 
Laughing,” she says, “ into the world I blow, 
At once the silken tassel of my Purse 


Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.” 
79 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XV 


And those who husbanded the Golden grain, 
And those who flung it to the winds like 
Rain, 
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d 


As buried once, Men want dug up again. 


XVI 


The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon 
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon, 
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face, 


Lighting a little hour or two—was gone. 


XVII 


Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai 
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, 
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp 


Abode his destin’d Hour, and went his way. 
80 


Rubdiyat of Omar Khayy4m 


XVIII 


They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank 
deep: 
And Bahram, that great hunter—the Wild 
Ass 
Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break hig 
Sleep. 
XIX 
I sometimes think that never blows so red 
The Rose as where some buried Cesar bled; 
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears 


Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head. 


XX 


And this reviving Herb whose tender Green 
Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean— 
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows 


From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen) 
81 


at 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayy4m | 


XXI 


Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears 
To-pay of past Regret and future Fears: 
To-morrow /—Why, ‘To-morrow I may be 


Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n thousand Years. 


XXII 


For some we loved, the loveliest and the best 

That from his Vintage rolling Time has prest, 

Have drunk their Cup a Round or two 
before, 


And one by one crept silently to rest. 


XXIII 
And we that now make merry in the Room 
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom, 
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of 
Earth ; 
Descend—ourselves to make a Couch—for 


whom ? 
82 


fill the Cup that clears 


lovéd 


my Be 
To-Day of past Re 


’ 


Ah 


gret and Future Fears 


Page S2 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XXIV 
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, 
Before we too into the Dust descend; 
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie, 
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and— 
sans End! 
XXV 
Alike for those who for To-pay prepare, 
And those that after some To-morrow stare, 
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries, 
“Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor 
There.” 
XXVI 
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d 
Of the two Worlds so wisely—they are thrust 
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to 
Scorn 
Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with 


Dust. 
83 


Rubdatyat of Omar Khayyam 


XXVII 


Myself when young did eagerly frequent 
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument 
About it and about; but evermore 


Came out by the same door where in I went, 


XXVIII 
With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, 
And with mine own hand wrought to make 
it grow; 
And this was all the Harvest that I 
reap’ d— 
“JT came like Water, and like Wind I go.” 


XXIX 


Into this Universe, and Wy not knowing 
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing ; 
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, 


I know not Waiither, willy-nilly blowing, 
84 


id eagerly frequent 


Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument. 


Myself when young d 


Page S4 


-Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XXX 


What, without asking, hither hurried Whence? 
And, without asking, Wither hurried hence! 
Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine 


Must drown the memory of that insolence! 


XXXI 


Up from Earth’s Centre through the Seventh 
Gate 
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, 
And many a Knot unravel’d by the Road; 
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. 


XXXII 


‘There was the Door to which I found no Key; 
There was the Veil through which I might not 
Sees 
Some little talk awhile of Mr and THEE 
There was—and then no more of THEE and 


ME. 
85 


Rubaiyat of Omar Kbayyam 


XXXIII 
Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that 
mourn 
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn ; 
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs 
reveal’d 
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn, 


XXXIV 
Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind 
The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find 
A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard, 
As from without—* THE Mr wiTHIN THEE 


BLIND!” 
XXXV 


Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn 
I lean’d, the Secret of my Life to learn; 
And Lip to Lip it murmur’d——“ While you 
live, 


Drink |—for, once dead, you never shall return.” 
86 


Rubaiyat of Omar Kbayyam 


XXXVI 


I think the Vessel, that with fugitive 
Articulation answer’d, once did live, 
And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip ] 
kiss’d, 


How many Kisses might it take—and give! 


XXXVII 

For I remember stopping by the way 

To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay: 
And with its all-obliterated Tongue 

It murmur’d—“ Gently, Brother, gently, pray I" 


XXXVIII 


And has not such a Story from of Old 
Down Man’s successive generations roll’d 
Of such a clod of saturated Earth 


Cast by the Maker into Human mould? 
87 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XXXIX 


And not a drop that from our Cups we throw 
For Earth to drink of, but may steal below 
To quench the fire of Anguish in some 
Eye 
There hidden—far beneath, and long ago, ~ 


XL 


As then the Tulip for her morning sup 

Of Heav’nly Vintage from the soil looks up, 
Do you devoutly do the like, till Heav’n 

To Earth invert you—like an empty Cup, 


XLI 


Perplext no more with Human or Divine, 
To-morrow’s tangle to the winds resign, 
And lose your fingers in the tresses of 


The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine. 
83 


Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn 


In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn 


Page Sb 


oy 
i 2 
eh 


” 5 


va ed ee Ow) eee bo 


- Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XLII 
And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press 
End in what All begins and ends in—Yes; 
Think then you are To-pay what YESTER: 
DAY 


You were—To-morrow you shall not be less. 


XLII 
So when the Angel of the darker Drink 
At last shall find you by the river-brink, 
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul 
Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not 
shrink. 
XLIV 
Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside, 
And naked on the Air of Heaven ride, 
Were’t not a Shame—were’t not a Shame 
for him 


In this clay carcase crippled to abide? 
89 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XLY 
Tis but a Tent where takes his one day’s rest 
A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; 
The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash 


Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest. 


XLVI 


And fear not lest Existence closing your 
Account, and mine, should know the like no 
more ; 
The Eternal Sakf from that Bowl has pour’d 
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour. 


XLVII 


When You and I behind the Veil are past, 
Oh, but the long, long while the World shall 
last, 
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds 


As the Sea’s self should heed a pebble cast. 
90 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XLVIII 


A Moment’s Halt—a momentary taste 

Of Brine from the Well amid the Waste— 
And Lo!—the phantom Caravan has reach’d 

The NoTHING it set out from—Oh, make 


haste ! 


XLIX 
Would you that spangle of Existence spend 
About the secrET—quick about it, Friend! 
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True; 
And upon what, prithee, does life depend ? 


L 
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True 
Yes; and a single Alif were the clue— 
Could you but find it—to the Treasure 
house, 


And peradventure to THE MASTER too; 
gl 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


LI 
Whose secret Presence, through Creation’s 
veins 
Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains; 
Taking all shapes from Mah to Mahi; and 
They change and perish all—but He remains; 


LII 


A moment guess’d—then back behind the Fold 

Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll’d 
Which, for the Pastime of Eternity, 

He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold. 


LIII 


But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor 
Of Earth, and up to Heav’n’s unopening Door, 
You gaze To-pay, while You are You-—how 
then 


To-MORROW, You when shall be You no more? 
92 


So when the Angel ‘of the darker Drink 
At last shall find you by the river-brink, 


Page 59 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


LIV 


Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit 
Of This and That endeavour and dispute; 
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape 


Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit. 


LV 


You know, my Friends, with what a brave 
Carouse 
I made a Second Marriage in my house; 
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, 


And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse. 


LVI . 


For “Is” and “Is-nor” though with Rule and 
Line, 
And “ Up-anp-pown ” by Logic I define, 
Of all that one should care to fathom, I 


Was never deep in anything but—Wine. 
93 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyim 


LVII 


Ah, but my Computations, People say, 
Reduced the Year to better reckoning?» 
Nay, 
°T was only striking from the Calendar 


Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday. 


LVIII 


And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, 
Came shining through the Dusk an Angel 
Shape 
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and 


He bid me taste of it; and ’t was—the Grape { 


LIX 


The Grape that can with Logic absolute 
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute: 
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice 


Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute: 
94 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


LX 


The mighty Mahmiid, Allah-breathing Lord, 
That all the misbelieving and black Horde 
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul 


Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword, 


LXI 


Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who 
dare 
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare? 
A Blessing, we should use it, should we | 
not? 


And if a Curse—why, then, Who set it there? 


LXII 


I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must, 
Scared by some After-reckoning ta’en on trust, 
Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink, 


To fill the Cup—when crumbled into Dust} 
99 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


LXIII 


Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise: 
One thing at least is certain— 777s life flies ; 
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; 


The Flower that once has blown forever dies, 


LXIV 


Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who 
Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through, 
Not one returns to tell us of the Road, 


Which to discover we must travel too. 


LXV 


The Revelations of Devout and Learn’d 
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn’d, 
Are all but Stories, which, awoke from 
Sleep, 
They told their comrades, and to Sleep 


return’d. 


96 


- Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


LXVI 


I sent my Soul through the Invisible, 
Some letter of that After-life to spell: 
And by and by my Soul return’d to me, 
And answer’d “I myself am MHeav’n and 
Well? 


LXVII 


Heav’n but the Vision of fulfill’d Desire, 
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire 
Cast on the Darkness into which Our. 
selves) 


So late emerg’d from, shall so soon expire. 


LXVIII 


We are no other than a moving row 
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go 
Round with the Sun-illumin’d Lantern held 


In Midnight by the Master of the Show; 
97 


Rubaiyat of Omar Kbayyam 


LXIX 
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays 
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days: 
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and 
slays, 


And one by one back in the Closet lays. 


LXX 


The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, 
Rut Here or There as strikes the Player goes; 

And He that toss’d you down into the Field, 
ffe knows about it all—He knows—HE 


knows! 


LXxI 
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, 
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit 
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, 


Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it, 
ge 


The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, 


But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; 
Page 98 


Rubdaiyat of Omar Kbayyam 


LXXII 


And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, 
Whereunder crawling coop’d we live and die, 
Lift not your hands to /¢ for help—for it 


As impotently moves as you or I. 


LXXIII 


With Earth’s first Clay They did the Last 
Man knead, 
And there of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed: 
And the first Morning of Creation wrote 
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read. 


LXXIV 


YESTERDAY Z%zs Day’s Madness did prepare; 
To-mMorRow’s Silence, Triumph, or Despair: 
Drink! for you know not whence you came, 
nor why: 
Drink! for you know not why you go, not 


where. 
99 


Rubatyat of Omar Khayyam 


LXXKV 
[ tell you this—When, started from the 
Goal, 
Dver the flaming shoulders of the Foal 
Of Heav’n Parwin and Mushtari they flung, 
In my predestin’d Plot of Dust and Soul 


LXXVI 
The Vine had struck a fibre: which about 
If clings my Being—let the Dervish flout ; 
Of my Base metal may be filed a Key, 
That shall unlock the Door he howls with: 


out. 


LXXVII 
And this I know: whether the one True Light 
Kindle to Love, or Wrath-consume me quite, 
One flash of It within the Tavern caught 


Better than in the Temple lost outright. 
100 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayy4m 


LXXVIII 


What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke | 
A conscious Something to resent the yoke g 
Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain 


Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke! 


LXXIX 


What! from his helpless Creature be repaid 
Pure Gold for what he lent him dross 


And cannot answer—Oh the sorry trade! 


——- 


LXXX 


Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with 
gin | 
Beset the Road I was to wander in, 
Thou wilt not with Predestin’d Evil round 


Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin! 
101 


Rubaiyat of Omar Kbayy4m 


LXXXI 


Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, 
And ev’n with Paradise devise the Snake: 
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man 
Is blacken’d—Man’s forgiveness give—and 
take ! 


* * * * *% * 


LXXXII 


As under cover of departing Day 
Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away, 
Once more within the Potter’s house alone 


I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay. 


LXXXIII 


Shapes of all sorts and Sizes, great and small, 
That stood along the floor and by the wall; 
And some loquacious vessels were; and some 


- Listen’d perhaps, but never talk’d at all, 
102 


GRsERT Jamer “a9 


Once more within the Potter’s house alone 


I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay. 
Page 102 


—Rubdaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


LXXXIV 
Said one among them—“ Surely not in vain 
My substance of the common Earth was ta’en 
And to this Figure moulded, to be broke, 


Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again.” 


LXXXV 


Then said a Second—* Ne’er a peevish Boy 
Would break the Bowl from Rigel he drank 
in joy; | : 
And He that with his hand the Vessel made 
Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.” 


LXXXVI 


After a momentary silence spake 

Some Vessel of a more ungainly make; 
“They sneer at me for leaning all awry: 

What! did the Hand then of the Potter 


shabe wt 


nee 


103 


Rubdiyat of Omar Kbayyam 


LXXXVII 
Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot—- 
I think a Sufi pipkin—waxing hot— 
“ All this of Pot and Potter—Tell me then, 
Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?” 


LXXXVIII 


* Why,” said another, “ Some there are who tell 
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell 
The luckless Pots he marr’d in making— 
Pish ! 
He’s a Good Fellow, and ’t will all be well.” 


LXXXIX 


“ Well,”? murmur’d one, “ Let whoso make or 
buy, 
My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry: 
But fill me with the old familiar Juice, 


Methinks I might recover by and by.” 
104 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


xC 
So while the Vessels one by one were speaking, 
The little Moon look’d in that all were seeking: 
And then they jogg’d each other, “ Brother! 
Brother ! 
Now for the Porter’s shoulder-knot a-creak 
ing!” 
* * * * * * 
XClI 
Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide, 
And wash the Body whence the Life has dix, 
And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf 


By some not unfrequented Garden-side. 


XCII 


That ev’n my buried Ashes such a snate 
Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air 
As not a True-believer passing by 


But shall be overtaken unaware. 
105 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XCIII 


Indeed the Idols I have loved so long 
Have done my credit in this World much 
wrong : 
Have drown’d my Glory in a shallow Cup, 
And sold my Reputation for a Song. 


XCIV 


Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before 
I swore—but was I sober when I swore? 
And then and then came Spring, and Rose 
in-hand 


My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore. 


XCV 


And much as Wine has play’d the Infidel, 
And robb’d me of my Robe of Honour—Well 
I wonder often what the Vintners buy 


One half so precious as the stuff they sell. 
106 


Rubdaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XCVI 
Vet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the 
Rose! 
That Youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should 
close ! 
The Nightingale that in the branches sang, 
Ah whence, and whither flown again, who 
knows! 
XCVII 
Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield 
One glimpse—if dimly, yet indeed, reveal’d, 
To which the fainting Traveller might spring, 
As springs the trampled herbage of the field! 


XCVIII 


Would but some wingéd Angel ere too late 
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate, 
And make the stern Recorder otherwise 


Enregister, or quite obliterate | 
107 


Rubdaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


XCIX 
Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire 
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, 
Would not we shatter it to bits—and then 
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s desire! . 
% a * tae * 
Cc 


Yon rising Moon that looks for us again— 
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; 
How oft hereafter rising look for us 
Through this same Garden—and for ove in 
vain | 
CI 
And when like her, oh Sakf, you shall pass 
Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on the Grass, 
And in your joyous errand reach the spot 
Where I made One—turn down an empty 


Glass! 
TamMAM 
108 


i 2 
at eke 


Bear 
wise 
se 


And in your joyous Errand reach the Spot 


Where | made One—turn down an empty Glass : 
Page 108 


Notes 


(STANzA II.) The “ False Dawn”; Subhi Kédzib, a 
transient Light on the Horizon about an hour before 
the Sudbhi sédik, or True Dawn; a well-known Phenom: 
enon in the East. 


(Iv.) New Year. Beginning with the Vernal Equi. 
nox, it must be remembered; and (howsoever the old 
Solar Year is practically superseded by the clumsy 
Lunar Year that dates from the Mohammedan Hijra) 
still commemorated by a Festival that is said to have 
been appointed by the very Jamshyd whom Omar so 
often talks of, and whose yearly Calendar he helped 
to rectify. 

“The sudden approach and rapid advance of the 
Spring,” says Mr. Binning,i “are verystriking. Before 
the Snow is well off the Ground, the Trees burst into 
Blossom, and the Flowers start forth from the Soil. At 
Now Rooz [their New Year’s Day] the Snow was lying 
in patches on the Hills and in the shaded Valleys, while 
the Frnit-trees in the Gardens were budding beautifully 


1Zwo Years’ Travel in Persia, &c., i. 165, 
109 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


and green Plants and Flowers springing up on the 
Plains on every side— 
‘And on old Hyems’ Chin and icy Crown 


‘An odorous Chaplet of sweet Summer buds 
‘Is, as in mockery, set.’— 


Among the Plants newly appeared I recognised some 
old Acquaintances I had not seen for many a Year: 
among these, two varieties of the Thistle—a coarse 
species of Daisy like the ‘ Horse-gowan’—red and white 
Clover—the Dock—the blue Cornflower—and that 
vulgar Herb the Dandelion rearing its yellow crest on 
the Banks of the Water-courses.” The Nightingale was 
not yet heard, for the Rose was not yet blown: but 
an almost identical Blackbird and Woodpecker helped 
to make up something of a North-country Spring. 

“The White Hand of Moses.” Exodus iv. 6; 
where Moses draws forth his Hand—not, according to 
the Persians, “leprous as Snow,’’—but white, as our 
May-blossom in Spring perhaps. According to them 
also the Healing Power of Jesus resided in his Breath, 


(v.) Iram, planted by King Shaddad, and now sunk 
somewhere in the Sands of Arabia. Jamshyd’s Seven- 
ring’d Cup was typical of the 7 Heavens, 7 Planets, 7 
Seas, &c., and was a Divining Cup. 


(v1.) Pehlevi, the old Heroic Sanskrit of Persia, 
Hafiz also speaks of the Nightingale’s Peh/evi, which 
did not change with the People’s. 

Lam not sure if the fourth line refers to the Red 

{10 


Se 


Notes 


Rose looking sickly, or to the Yellow Rose that ought 
to be Red; Red, White, and Yellow Roses all common 
in Persia. I think that Southey, in his Common- 
Place Book, quotes from some Spanish author about the 
Rose being White till 10 o’clock; ‘‘ Rosa Perfecta” at 
2; and “ perfecta incarnada” at 5. 


(x.) Rustum, the “ Hercules ” of Persia, and Zal, 
his Father, whose exploits are among the most cele- 
brated in the Shahnama. Hatim Tai, a well-known 
type of Oriental Generosity. 


(x111.) A Drum—beaten outside a Palace, 


XIv.) That is, the Rose’s Golden Centre. 
(XIV.) 


(xvill.) Persepolis: call’d also Zakht-z-Jamshyd— 
THE THRONE OF JAMSHYD, ‘“ Aing Splendid,” of the 
mythical Peshddédian Dynasty, and supposed (accord- 
ing to the Shahnama) to have been founded and built 
by him. Others refer it to the Work of the Genie 
King, Jan Ibn Jan—who also built the Pyramids— 
before the time of Adam. 


Baurhm GOr—Bahrdm of the Wild Ass—a Sas- 
sanian Sovereign—had also his Seven Castles (like the 
King of Bohemia!) each of a-different Colour: each 
with a Royal Mistress within; each of whom tells him 
a Story, as told in one of the most famous Poems of 
Persia, written by Amir Khusraw: all these Sevens alsa 

LB 3 


Rubdiyat of Omar Khayyam 


figuring (according to Eastern Mysticism) the Seven 
Heavens; and perhaps the Book itself that Eighth, 
into which the mystical Seven transcend, and within 
which they revolve. The Ruins of Three of those 
Towers are yet shown by the Peasantry; as also the 
Swamp in which Bahram sunk, like the Master of 
Ravenswood, while pursuing his Gir. 
The Palace that to Heav’n his pillars threw, 
And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew— 

I saw the solitary Ringdove there, 
And ‘Coo, coo, coo,” she cried; and ‘“ Coo, coo, coo.” 

This Quatrain Mr. Binning found, among several of 
Hafiz and others, inscribed by some stray hand among 
the ruins of Persepolis. The Ringdove’s ancient Peh- 
4evt Coo, Coo, Coo, signifies also in Persian ‘* Where ? 
Where? Where?” In Attar’s “ Bird-parliament ” she 
is reproved by the Leader of the Birds for sitting still, 
and for ever harping on that one note of lamentation 
for her lost Yusuf. 

Apropos of Omar’s Red Roses in Stanza xix, lam 
reminded of an old English Superstition, that our 
Anemone Pulsatilla, or purple ‘‘ Pasque Flower” 
(which grows plentifuliy about the Fleam Dyke, near 
Cambridge), grows only where Danish Blood has been 
spilt. 

(xx1.) A thousand years to each Planet. 


(xxxI.) Saturn, Lord of the Seventh Heaven. 


(XXXII,) ME-AND-THEE: some dividual Existence 
or Personality distinct from the Whole. 
112 


Notes 


(xxxvi.) One of the Persian Poets-—Attdr, I think 
—has a pretty story about this. <A thirsty Traveller 
dips his hand into a Spring of Water to drink from. 
By-and-by comes another who draws up and drinks 
from an earthen Bowl, and then departs, leaving his 
Bowl behind him. The first Traveller takes it up for 
another draught; but is surprised to find that the same 
Water which had tasted sweet from his own hand 
tastes bitter from the earthen Bowl. But a Voice— 
from Heaven, I think—tells him the clay from which 
the Bowl is made was once Maz ; and, into whatever 
shape renewed, can never lose the bitter flavour of 
Mortality. 


(XXXIx.) The custom of throwing a little Wine on 
the ground before drinking still continues in Persia, 
and perhaps generally in the East. Mons. Nicolas 
considers it “un signe de libéralité, et en méme temps 
un avertissement que le buveur doit vider sa coupe 
jusqua’ la derniere goutte.” Is it not more likely an 
ancient Superstition; a Libation to propitiate Earth, 
or make her an Accomplice in the illicit Revel? Or, 
perhaps, to divert the Jealous Eye by some sacrifice of 
superfluity, as with the Ancients of the West? With 
Omar we see something more is signified; the precious 
Liquor is not lost, but sinks into the ground to refresh 
the dust of some poor Wine-worshipper foregone, 

Thus Hafiz, copying Omarinso many ways: “When 
thou drinkest Wine pour a draught on the ground. 
Wherefore fear the Sin which brings to another 
Gain?” 


113 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


(xLi11.) According to one beautiful Oriental Leg. 
end, Azrael accomplishes his mission by holding to the 
nostril an Apple from the Tree of Life. 

This and the two following Stanzas would have 
been withdrawn, as somewhat de trop, from the Text, 
but for advice which I least like to disregard. 


(LI.) From Mah to Mahi; from Fish to Moon. 


(Ltv1.) A Jest, of course, at his Studies. A curious 
mathematical Quatrain of Omar’s has been pointed 
out to me; the more curious because almost exactly 
parallel’d by some Verses of Doctor Dcane’s that are 
quoted in Izaak Walton’s Lives! Here is Omar: 
“You and I are the image of a pair of compasses; 
though we have two heads (sc. our /ee¢) we have one 
body; when we have fixed the centre for our circle, we 
bring our heads (sc. feet) together at the end.” Dr. 
Donne: 

If we be two, we two are so 
As stiff twin-compasses are two, 


Thy Soul, the fixt foot, makes no show 
To move, but does if the other do. 


And though thine in the centre sit, 

Yet when my other far does roam, 
Thine leans and hearkens after it, 

And grows erect as mine comes home 


Such thou must be to me, who must 
Like the other foot obliquely run; 

Thy firmness makes my circle just, 
And me to end where I begun. 


114 


Notes 


(LIx.) The Seventy-two Religions supposed te 
divide the World, zzcluding Islamism, as some think: 
but others not. 


(Lx.) Alluding to Sultan Mahmid’s Conquest of 
India and its dark people. 


(LXVIII.) dndisi khiydl, a Magic-lantern still used 
in India; the cylindrical Interior being painted with 
various Figures, and so lightly poised and ventilated 
as to revolve round the lighted Candle within. 


(Lxx.) A very mysterious Line in the Original: 


O danad O danad O danad O—— 


breaking off something like our Wood-pigeon’s Note, 
which she is said to take up just where she left off. 


(LXxXv.) Parwin and Mushtari—The Pleiads and 
Jupiter. 


(LXxxvIiI.) This Relation of Pot and Potter to 
Man and his Maker figures far and wide in the Litera- 
ture of the World, from the time of the Hebrew 
Prophets to the present; when it may finally take the 
name of ‘‘ Pot theism,” by which Mr, Carlyle ridiculed 
Sterling’s “Pantheism.” JZy Sheikh, whose knowl- 
edge flows in from all quarters, writes to me— 

‘“ Apropos of old Omar’s Pots, did I ever tell you the 
sentence I found in ‘ Bishop Pearson on the Creed’? 
‘Thus are we wholly at the disposal of His will, and 


TI§ 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


our present and future condition framed and oiderea 
by His free, but wise and just, decrees. Hath not the 
potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one 
vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour ? (Rom. 
ix. 21). And can that earth-artificer have a freer 
power over his érother potsherd (both being made of the 
same metal), than God hath over him, who, by the 
strange fecundity of His omnipotent power, first made 
the clay out of nothing, and then him out of that?’” 

And again—from a very different quarter—“I had 
to refer the other day to Aristophanes, and came by 
chance on.a curious Speaking-pot story in the Vespz 
which I had quite forgotten. 


AoKAéov. “Akove, py pevy’> Ev SuBdpec yuvg wore 1.1435 
xatéag éxivov. 

2 wg 9 ON 2 
Karyyopoc, Tavr’ éy@ paptipouan 
o. Odyivoc ody Eywv Ti’ Exeuaptipator 

Elf?’ 7) XvBapitic eivev, et vat tav Képav 
THY paptuplayv rabtyv édoac, év TAyeEt 
érideopuov Expiw, vovv av elyec mAelova. 


“The Pot calls a bystander to be a witness to his 
bad treatment. The woman says, ‘If, by Proserpine, 
instead of all this ‘testifying’ (comp. Cuddie and his 
mother in ‘Old Mortality!’) you would buy yourself 
a rivet, it would show more sense in you!’ The 
Scholiast explains echinus as ayyo¢ Tt x Kepdyov,” 

One more illustration for the oddity’s sake from the 
« Autobiography of a Cornish Rector,” by the lata 
{james Hamley Tregenna. 1871. 


116 


Notes 


“There was one old Fellow in our Company—he 
was so like a Figure in the ‘ Pilgrim’s Progress’ that 
Richard always called him the ‘ALLEGORY,’ with a 
long white beard—a rare Appendage in those days— 
and a Face the colour of which seemed to have been 
baked in, like the Faces one used to see on Earthen- 
ware Jugs. In our Country-dialect Earthenware is 
called ‘ Clome’; so the Boys of the Village used to 
shout out after him—‘Go back to the Potter, old 
Clome-face, and get baked over again.’ For the 
‘Allegory,’ though shrewd enough in most things, had 
the reputation of being ‘ sazft-baked, i. e., of weak in 
tellect.” 


(xc.) At the Close of the Fasting Month, Rama. 
zan (which makes the Musulman unhealthy and un- 
amiable), the first Glimpse of the New Moon (who 
rules their division of the Year), is looked for with the 
utmost Anxiety, and hailed with Acclamation. Then 
it is that the Porter’s Knot may be heard—toward the 
Cellar. Omar has else where a pretty Quatrain abext 
the same Moon— 


- Be of Good Cheer—the sullen Month will die, 
* And a young Moon requite us by and by; 

“‘ Look how the Old one meagre, bent, and wan 
* With Age and Fast, is fainting from the Sky!” 


New Light 
on Omar Kbayyam 


A REMARKABLE ANALYSIS OF FITZGERALD’S 
VERSION OF THE PERSIAN POET. 


By EDWARD 5S. HOLDEN. 


Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the quat. 
rains of the Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, has 
taken its place as one of the classics of English 
literature and it has had thousands upon thou- 
sands of readers in America and in England. 
Fitzgerald and Lord Tennyson were life-long 
friends. ‘Tennyson was the Poet Laureate and 
the foremost man of letters of his country. 
Fitzgerald, during nearly all his life, was only 
known as an obscure scholar and student. Yet 
it is likely that in the centuries to come no more 


COPYRIGHT BY THE SUN PRINTING AND PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION, 1900, 


119 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


of Tennyson’s work will remain than is con 
tained in the thin volumes of Fitzgerald. 
Tennyson’s place in our literature is secure, 
but it is no more secure than Fitzgerald’s. 

When it is considered that the only claim 
of Fitzgerald was to present in an English 
dress the poems of the astronomer-poet of 
Persia who died nearly eight centuries ago, his 
fame is at first sight inexplicable. It is, in- 
deed, not to be explained at all until we realize 
that Fitzgerald was far more than a translator. 
Prof. Charles Eliot Norton has expressed his 
real office in the most luminous way. He says: 
“ Fitzgerald is to be called ‘translator’ only in 
default of a better word, one which should ex- 
press the poetic transfusion of a poetic spirit 
from one language to another, and the re- 
representation of the ideas and images of the 
original in a form not altogether diverse from 
their own, but perfectly adapted to the new 
conditions of time, place, custom and habit of 
mind in which they reappear. It is the work 
of a poet inspired by the work of a poet; not 
a translation, but the redelivery of a poetic 
inspiration.” 

120 


New Light on Omar Khayyam 


Prof. Norton wrote more than thirty years 
ago. Since that time the whole field has been 
thoroughly worked. ‘The libraries of Europe 
and Asia have been ransacked and many man- 
uscripts of Omar’s poems, previously unknown, 
have been brought to light. Nearly a score 
such arenow known. These manuscripts, and 
others, are represented by a dozen lithographed 
editions of his work. ‘Translations have been 
published in the present century in German, 
French, Italian, Hungarian and _ English, 
Eight or nine issues have been made in Eng. 
land of Fitzgerald’s translation, besides four- 
teen or more in America. Half a dozen other 
Englishmen have also published independent 
translations, and a very long list could be made 
of critical articles printed in magazines and 
reviews. The bare enumeration of such par- 
ticulars is a convincing proof of the hold that 
these Oriental poems have upon our Western 
imaginations. Nowhere is the hold stronger 
than in our own country. 

Why is this hold so strong and intimate? 
The Persians are, in the first place, human be- 
ings like ourselves. They have wants, hopes, 

121 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


fears, delights, and joys, and they seek the 
satisfaction of these in like fashion. Any 
graphic and truthful recital of human feeling 
interests us. In the case of the Persians it is 
more than this. While the form of their poetry 
is as alien to us as that of the Chinese or of 
the Tartars, the feelings struggling for expres- 
sion are not foreign. We are of Aryan blood 
as they are, and thousands of years of differ- 
ent experiences have not shut the door between 
us. During all these centuries the culture of 
the East has, in one way or another, touched 
the West. Their art, their architecture, their 
chivalry, transformed it is true, have influenced 
our own most intimately. 

Alexander the Great destroyed at Persepolis 
(B. C. 330) buildings more magnificent than 
any others ever seen on the round world, not 
excepting the monuments of Athens. The 
looms of Persia made Constantinople splendid. 
The Persians transmitted the immortal fables 
and apologues of India to the Arabs, and 
through them to the West. The works of a 
Persian sage (Avicenna) were text books in 
the University of Paris so Jate as the time of 

122 


- 


New Light on Omar Khayyam 


Louis XIV. When Benjamin Franklin was 
seeking for a new chapter of the Bible he found 
it in Sa’adi’s “ Parable of Abraham and the 
Fire Worshipper.” Our little children are 
bred upon the tales of the “ Arabian Nights,” 
a great part of which are of Persian origin. 
In a thousand unacknowledged ways the West 
has been taught by the East. When England 
was a wilderness inhabited by savages Persia 
was polite, cultivated, learned and illustrious. 
Whether we know it or not, we have learned 
much from them, and our thoughts still re 
spond to theirs. 

It is the form of their thoughts, and espec- 
ially of their poetic thoughts, that is alien. It 
is worth while to dwell a little upon this point. 
One of the odes of Hafiz reads, in the Persian, 
as follows: 

The Persian is written in italics, and neces- 
sary words are supplied in parentheses: 

(The) entrance (of my) face (that is) my eye 

(is) thy nest 
(With) courtesy increasing, sit down (in this) 

house {it is) thy house. 

What are we to do with this? We must 

123 


Rubaiyat of Omar Kbayy4m 


reach the meaning of Hafiz by a series of ap- 
proximations, each time coming a step nearer 
to Occidental forms, but always preserving the 
Oriental feeling—if we can. Hafiz would cer- 
tainly have accepted the following couplet as 
his own: 


The vestibule of my face (my eye) zs a nest for you: 
Be gracious, oh, sitdown: my house is your house. 


The learned editor of Hafiz—Rosensweig — 
has versified this in German: 


Meines Auges Halle will Ich 
Dir zum Neste weih’n 

Sass’ in ihr dich gnadig nieder. 
Denn das Haus is dein. 


This ode has also been made part of an 
English sonnet, as follows : 


From Hafiz’s lips, in centuries gone by, 
The honeyed couplets of this artless ode, 
Like limpid drops of dew, successive flowed: 


“‘ My love,” he said, “the globe of Hafiz’s eye 
Thy mansion is; then enter graciously, 
Be welcome, rest, remain—for this abode 
Is by its owner on his guest bestowed 
With honor and in hospitality.” 
124 


New Light on Omar Khayyam 


How true the poet’s crystal accent rings, 
And with what grave sincerity he sings 
His song of passion and of courtesy! 


At the small opening of the lover’s eye 
The loved one knocks—then enters—thence 
departs 
Only to dwell within his heart of hearts! 


Each one of these translations is a progress 
away from the form of Hafiz’s couplet; each 
one of them is a step toward his meaning re- 
stated in modern and in English fashion. The 
problem of translation is to change the form 
without losing the flavor. If the translator 
leaves the form, as in the lines “the vestibule 
of my face is a nest for you,” the oddity of 
the image obscures its beauty to the general 
reader, who may not know that the eye is often 
so called in Oriental verse, just as a slender 
girl is “a cypress,” a blood-stained warrior “a 
Judas tree” and so forth. If one translates 
as literally as Rosenzweig one comes to bald 
expressions like these, “ Sit down graciously 
in the hall of my eye; it is dedicated as a nest 
for you: the house is yours.” If one follows 
the lines of the sonnet some of the verbal ex- 

125 


Rubdiyat of Omar Khayyam 


pressions of Hafiz are quite lost while his 
meaning is, perhaps, still preserved. 

The lesson to be learned is that if the trans- 
lator is satisfied to reproduce in English the 
poetic inspiration of the Persian and is not 
concerned to reproduce its verbal forms, he 
may employ verse as a vehicle. 

This was the method of Fitzgerald, as we 
shall see. If, on the other hand, his aim is to 
give the thoughts of the poet as he conceived 
them, the translator must abandon verse and 
express himself in prose—in a balanced and 
poetic prose, if possible, but still in prose. 

Two important books dealing with Omar 
Khayyam and with Fitzgerald’s translation of 
him have lately appeared from the hand of 
Mr. Edward Heron-Allen of London. ‘The 
firstis “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; a 
facsimile of the MS. in the Bodleian Library, 
translated and edited by Edward Heron-Allen: 
London, Nichols, 1898:” the other is ‘“ Ed- 
ward Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 
with their original Persian sources, collated 
from his own MSS., and literally translated 
by Edward Heron-Allen: London, Quaritch, 

126 


New Light on Omar Khayyam 


1899.” It is proposed to give here a short 
account of them, because they throw a flood of 
light on the questions we have been consider- 
ing. 

The first contains a photographic reproduc- 
tion of the pages of a manuscript of Omar’s 
poems, belonging to the Bodleian Library at 
Oxford ; a transliteration of the written Per- 
sian characters in the printed characters; a 
translation of the poem into rhythmic English 
prose, together with an introduction and a very 
interesting and scholarly chapter, entitled 
“Some Sidelights Upon Edward Fitzgerald’s 
Poem.” The manuscript in the Bodleian Li- 
brary is the one employed by Fitzgerald him- 
self. 

The second volume is really an expansion 
of the terminal chapter of the first. It gives 
upon each left-hand page a quatrain of Omar 
Khayyam as translated by Fitzgerald, and 
upon the opposite page the original Persian 
which Fitzgerald used, together with a prose 
translation by Mr. Heron-Allen and copious 
notes and references. This arrangement per- 
mits a careful examination of Fitzgerald’s 

127 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


work, and from a study of both books it be 
comes possible to say where he obtained the 
inspiration for his translation, how far the 
poems that we have accepted as Omar’s are 
really his, and how far they are derived from 
a general reading of other authors or from 
purely English ideas that would have been un- 
familiar and alien to the Persian poet. 

Mr. Allen has studied these questions with 
ardor and persistence. He has read every 
line of the printed correspondence left by 
Fitzgerald so as to obtain an accurate idea of 
the course of his studies. Mr. Allen knows, 
day by day, what books Fitzgerald was read- 
ing, what grammars and dictionaries he was 
consulting, and is able to follow, so far as an- 
other man can, his thoughts. Moreover, by 
great diligence, Mr. Allen has obtained a copy 
of each and every one of these books and 
manuscripts, and has surrounded himself with 
the precise apparatus used by the first trans- 
lator. Finally he has made a complete trans- 
lation of the very manuscript that Fitzgerald 
employed. 

“T find myself,” he says, “in the interesting 

128 


New Light on Omar Khayyam 


position of having the whole of Fitzgerald’s 
material before me.” The result of his exam- 
ination of it is summarized as follows: 

The third edition of Fitzgerald’s book con- 
tains one hundred and one quatrains. Of these 
“forty-nine are faithful and beautiful para- 
phrases” of single quatrains of Omar; forty- 
four are traceable to two or more stanzas of 
the originals in Fitzgerald’s hands; two are 
inspired by translations of Omar that Fitz- 
gerald had seen; two are derived from Hafiz’s 
odes; two from a Persian poem (the Mantik- 
ut-tair) and two, Mr. Allen says, “reflect the 
whole spirit of the original poem.” The last 
six have no prototypes in Omar, of course. 

We may pause a moment to note the exceed- 
ing industry and patience of Mr. Allen’s re- 
searches. They do honor to him no less than 
to Fitzgerald and to Omar. His general con- 
clusion upon Fitzgerald’s poem is expressed 
as follows: “A translation pure and simple 
it is zof, but a translation in the most artistic 
sense it undoubtedly is.” In what is to follow 
portions of Mr. Allen’s book will be quoted so 
that the reader may test this conclusion for 

129 


Rubdaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


himself. First will be printed some of the 
stanzas of Fitzgerald’s poem, and next the ex- 
cellent prose translation of Mr. Allen. Read- 
ers who are comparatively unfamiliar with Per- 
sian poetry will thus be able to see it in an 
unvarnished, unsophisticated form; readers 
who already have a familiarity of the sort will 
be charmed with the verbal felicities of Mr. 
Allen’s prose, and every one will derive some 
new pleasure from a comparison of the two. 

Here, for example, is a quatrain that is, in 
its way, famous: 


Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth did make, 
And ev’n with Paradise devise the Snake: 

For all the sin wherewith the Face of Man 
Is blackened—Man’s forgiveness give—and take. 


Will it be believed that this tetrastich is not 
to be found in Omar at all? It is a pure in- 
vention of Fitzgerald’s. Its very sound is 
modern, and its attitude is not Omar’s, but 
another’s. 

Mr. Heron-Allen has found no real equiva- 
lent for it anywhere, though he has tried earn- 
estly. Much controversy has raged about this 

130 


New Light on Omar Khayyam 


stanza and there is no space available to pre- 
sent even an abstract of it. The present writer 
can find nothing Persian in it except the figure 
of a face blackened by sin, which is common 
in Oriental writing. In fact Fitzgerald’s con- 
ception of sin is, in the writer’s opinion, not 
Mohammed’s and not Omar’s, but a compound 
of Calvin’s and Milton’s, and the Calvinists of 
Islamism were 600 years later than Omar. It 
is a matter of individual taste, learning and 
judgment to decide whether Fitzgerald has 
not, in this instance, exceeded the widest per- 
missible license of a translator. 

Leaving such questions, about which contro- 
versy is endless, we may cite instances of per- 
fectly legitimate translation, choosing the most 
famous quatrains. 


XII. 
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou 
Beside me singing in the Wilderness— 
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow. 


This is a happy version of the original: 
131 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


I desire a flask of ruby wine and a book of verses, 

just enough to keep me alive—and half a loaf is need. 
ful; 

And then, that thou and I should sit in the wilderness 

Is better than the Kingdom of a Sultan. 


There is still another form of this stanza in 
the original as follows: 


If a loaf of wheaten bread be forthcoming, 

A gourd of wine, and a thigh-bone of mutton, 

And then, if thou and I be sitting in the wilderness, 
That were a joy not within the power of any Sultan. 


Fitzgerald writes: 


XIV. 
Look to the flowing rose about us—* Lo, 
“ Laughing,” she says, “itto the world I blow, 
“ At once the silken tassel of my purse 
“Tear, and its treasure on the garden throw.” 


The rose said: I brought a gold-scattering hand: 
Laughing, laughing, have I blown into the world; 
I snatched the noose-string from off the head of my 
purse, and I am gone! 
IT flung into the world all the ready money I had! 


XVI. 
The worldly hope men set their hearts upon 
Turns ashes—or it prospers; and anon 
Like snow upon the desert’s dusty face, 
Lighting a little hour or two—is gone. 
132 


New Light on Omar Khayydm 


Oh heart! suppose all this world’s affairs were within 
your power, 

And the whole world from end to end as you desire it 

And then, like snow in the desert upon its surface, 

Resting for two or three days, understand yourself to 
be gone. 


XIX. 
I sometimes think that never blows so red 
The Rose as where some buried Cesar bled; 
That every hyacinth the Garden wears 
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head. 


Everywhere that there has been a rose or tulip bed, 
It has come from the redness of the blood of a king: 
Every violet shoot that grows from the earth 

Is a mole that was (once) on the cheek of a beauty. 


XXIX. 

Into this Universe and Why not knowing, 
Nor Whence, like Water willy nilly flowing: 
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, 

I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing. 


This is from the original : 


He first brought me in confusion into existence. 
What do I gain from life save my amazement at it ? 
We went away against our will, and we know not what 
it was— 
The purpose of this coming, and going, and being. 
133 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 


LXIV. 


Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who 
Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through, 

Not one returns to tell us of the Road, 
Which to discover, we must travel, too. 


I have travelled far in a-wandering by valley and 
desert, 

It came to pass that I wandered in all quarters of the 
world; 

I have not heard from anyone who came from that 
road, 

The road he travelled, no traveller travels again, 


LXV: 
Heav’n, but the Vision of fulfilled Desire, 
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul of fire, 
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves 
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire. 


Heil is a spark from my useless worries, 
Paradise is a moment of time when I am tranquil. 


LXIx. 


Impotent Pieces of the Game He plays 

Upon this Checkerboara of Nights and Days, 
Hither and thither moves, and checks and slays, 

And one by one back in the closet lays. 


134 


New Light on Omar Khayyam 


This quatrain is the version of: 
To speak plain language, and not in parables, 
We are the pieces and heaven plays the game: 
We are played together in a baby-game upon the chess 
board of existence, 
And one by one we return to the box of non-existence. 


XCVI. 


Yet ah! that Spring should vanish with the Rose! 

That Youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close} 
The nightingale that in the branches sang, 

Ah! whence, and whither flown again, who knows! 


Alas! that the book of youth is folded up! 

And that this fresh purple spring is winter-stricken ; 
That bird of joy, whose name is youth, 

Alas! I know not whence it came, nor when it went. 


The foregoing comparisons put the reader 
in an independent critical position. It is pos- 
sible for him to judge just how closely Fitz- 
gerald has followed his original and in how 
far he has at times departed from it in spirit 
and in form. Mr. Heron-Allen’s books are 
indispensable to any one who wishes thoroughly 
to understand and enjoy the poems. of Omar 
and of Fitzgerald. After all his labor the 
student will finally accept Prof. Norton’s ver- 

135 


Rubatyat of Omar Khayyam 


dict, already quoted: Fitzgerald’s poem is 
“not a copy, but a reproduction, not a trans- 
lation, but the redelivery of a poetic inspira- 
tion.” For the materials upon which a critical 
judgment may be based we are indebted to 
the two books of Mr. Heron-Allen. | 


136 


Aha 


Pac tac? 


y 


x 
a 
< 


Bia 
Peat eth 


Sete 


") 


peta 

ret pata Son ah, a 

=; : pees pan ae te 
=o < 


: ery aie eee 
aS 


——- 
os ier 


eopererer anes, 


i 


i 
{ 


il 
Hi 
H 
i 
ii 
i 
{tl 


aet My 
aan) iN ; Y 
HUBER TE os 
aa : 
Pare td 
TAGE Ht 
i 
a 
ot +} f 4 
nue Riche ae si ber ey tea} 
be raat i Mh 
Atte i NG 
Hy {HET PeM CE ate oat bat pf 
UM ATERSE EY H 
i TH! iiss 
Toate rah 43 
Hitt Hit 


{ 
eared 
ah nD i 


Hit 
ue 


Ail 


TYME: 
ila 
AT redisayuiqetedde i 


Ht We Hits 


qeieriqeee teh 
pager lee 
ENO aU 


AAG Ay iii 
RERCORETARInn HEN i AH ie at 
We HANH Mania (ii Aca HARE Y NER RHA 
Hveltdtaent reid vee ALT AtE Le ae CATE 

{itl ii We VOUT 
Venti et 


HH ditty neat HITE Lt 
Mt Hasina HEL HOHAR 


wietididl ih 


Hnaidinieisiit 
CEC CY 
Al TARTRATE Hil Webudipedercencelaaine wi 

Verne Cee EH EPEL 


PRT ae 
TGR HM eet tf if aye Mint 
a a \i WEE 


it He iti 


wales 


PV Liuivttitgutitat Sn A TCC ET 
ficult une eae eae Ay Le eA cat 
sdit acd EH GRA tH He eter TEAL N i He iiethaeal pant (ts ee 
at We jag quanta HEAT PUPAE EP i Ha VET NG 
{i iil THEE i sie PHL site shut hoe HIN tart wi teide eae! if 
RU gsereeg cay ee 
THE eg 


UME ETE 


Hebe eh 


Te i 


Haas 


APPEL Cirraterai Gere 
UO a WATTS 
it HUE HEHE: teu tide i 1 aa i 
ATTIRE TTUT UU RRA Ce et 
WINS vetatitildl fey 
uit MR wt i iit uilll! 
HEE 
uate 
a 


ity 


VPC 


CENTERED peoehe 


rat tiki 
iit! vii{lt i it iit aH Mi Ala teee 
ili 
rr pice 


Hi Hitt ihe IHU EMU 


AT aA Ha 


SR RAH LT il i ih ii 

HTTP RTT itl Ki itt (dest ac eee euel {! 

EE TT eT MERE EEE 
it 


RAE sitet tif) TRE scdAUIUA aa ALUM : 
Preece AEN ENTE WH SUE TEA CCU TECHN: HEIL tHE oi 
CARTE LET? PUTER TE TD TNT it 


ren eH CHANT! 
He EAR AH Ei LH ee : 
ani a 


raPeVORuTET ETaDI SUE T LAN Lt 
PEN ea THEE HELE TNE i! PUPAE TELE 
NH at NW) \i ith qui 1 insu iT hy wig rte ia i a ea HH Hil i i iit 
Seu tities nh ANE UTE HE a teat 


HHUA TIEAU HEME UHE LGR wait Lp 
aI ty 1 
‘i Hi lis Hie ate! pe Hea bey ee reetuittt 
HA iene sacred 


ae Beas aul 
wf 


AEA iy 


AT aye 
Liven 


NOSE MEN UATAreALER ECU 
Wi val 


SS TAA 


nit a a 
} iW 4 i] f i Ti ' cea { 
ty anja i HRA iil HUE jaedtil| UIE a {i AEH Wi si it nity iwi nh ii ae media 
ae fiaeiann cad TaN idl i HNL ih ait EL ret’ il itil ut Wot Pat 
ahs if ratang HUD etLt LA Oe RC ti un i wi DET ee LR Hat Withietes 
PUENTE REREAD ee itt He Ey inl it {iit Hi il iti i 14 SEEN (MELLEL wi a Ee 
RSL THA MANULT HA ESL ted WAT Hat sy {qui Ee AVI a TE ASRALHHD Hd vee THe tde Cunt 
se diiiainiti PRATT Sy Ha HH Ht (Ree ay aELE TRU GE SUSU GEA TE LUGO vail iii pitti 
ali Prrienrer rena wie SaEre a TUTOT AU ESS SCR { 1 al} BPH It aie H ih nh ijetiey PENA aae Uybeh gee Pettit teeter lade i inkl 
(yt unualedeaaaat tf Wiki aii ail wi Haid Vat putty u yay DO TH ae tien sit it 
i Hil eG EE een See 
Abad dee cit inl RETTIG Wide IE Me TE TTL ca BEE ere ie a rita ceit iat tL RMS ee UN 
HA Wat il | Wilsall cea UTA AH THC i Ha ELLA ARCH LTY Wt eRe TEE WCU! 
ERTL VO Ree ATT ih : With HEL aE ae ii peach ieiuatsad iat duyese ate THU AGH 
HFM HED AGHA GHEE aiHHHaiEidt Cee APE THE Hae SHURE WAGE HAG TLE Lalit 
Ha i Hi \ ‘i i i 4 aii tia liilidlit jit! iti i Eye anlitif Hie wii i i fit: vee tie y aden tated 
ee a Te Ca eee aR AAA a He 
ati Hea (shit aa AIH HAVING LEHANE tig PRATER ITART TEACHERS nC PERTTI RRRUCU CATE attain HHH itTi Git 
rata i pitti Tir ue HHA iit High ied: UU Ht if! (RH iil Hitt Wore Re He HEHE UENO TWA LAD ECM EAK Muy OCU 
iil Ae Wy et Hi raelitl + i batt Tp bases if} qiieltie tit 4 Vithvetli ERR epee tel TOPO Rent Eerie 1th wisi 
Ae cata att aye t i nai inuitiitis WHEL EH cae ties ict inetd PTRRTETTRUT Tage ca 
ea (ugillieniinidt HA Hee TET Ca ere Re A ANT syred yin qeidise tet it tit i PE 4G Hae eee et HE HEC 
if SE TAMA YEE H 4} iif 
AE ennit atti uit Hii i Ht Hi Ra TUTTO Ta dali iii isa itll sie H Lie ita tL 
a \ \ t eee t au y ra \ pine Heed Erle Ma ETE TED 
TARE GU PTC a a 
Hata i wa AAU AR CRETE RR RRA TCC He ce 
At Miata HAT HS TE Ul a Ae 
NIA Ea \ il | elt tt ih Upetpede age Hast Vereen EA At t fe ilgui UHH iy ma + Peake it ri 
aad | Ht i Hi WeCSguaed sy Fane wat ti { ae ete iy te beayeyiett a 
MH Wie 1H Hn WHT Wilh iii wll il i feat ieitie i aigiinit ini 
VEU ‘ult WH ' ii il \ i AVEC Mat HLLAT UIE Hentai Wictteu ice atk : Hae NW ua i 
TCH EET (HHI UT ne HH Hi MLN ae Wuiiaic tne ig Uf ui ENE 
Hh eit uid ul PITRE Hi iit ay i de HiteaRiFtyetetl A RTRR TEED Hild wigs Mute! 1 i tiie 
al bigesteas | beet | } HH iit 1 | Ht } Aidit if ' LURE Hitt eee ity a BE a peat \ AIR HAN ti HH tH {iif tH Ae 
He ti 1 a i ty i { i { Hat TEE AV Maca RH WTS Pare AT IRILLHUiE eee aHi4ib UE tae PO tH 
ein i Rau) | Hi HI Hh AMO ETL ELAS CACHE HALEY RTE cut uv nt a HT it 
iti He Hie NARA ea a Hla AUN Te REL figyeg unread ttn WEE iuialldidtiti 
i: ia bya afi th Wey ei it finite i ia iy EE ETE art (t 1H Hit Haaren, 
iF | tit elit Hd ad igh ged ; 
‘i au a ee ca Cee 
Hl Hi Hin ae IHLE Sea NH 
Ht Hy Hl Hills Wi tit itn iin WW Aa ait st ti WITHIN Aad ah UTE 
\ i Hi HCG HT Tdi ii Hiishaeiio HEE Wilii ql Hae iH ai TWEEN UPA AT LT) 
| i watts a Hi HA eu ath ul H a qi oye li Hn rasta ILE CO 5 Witla ian 
‘ Hi is yay 4g yall ie peri aay Hye sedid APE (ure qutaet 
Hi A ay Hae HCH AEN ati AD 
ae H ni uk an ene tt t Huet itt ' ai silt iil! at tHE HHH HHH 
jake i ee Ht | ily tel JE atl Mus HRT a nani yl ited reece censecteT CGH TEL ({ 
{ 4iyitt Hitiie tinued h litte Pu yiisnt PARAM UNEAL ih MAGE if i} tt HALE 
iit We (iia in iii tli 
Perera dui lial it iii sits rstiseUidl itt 
‘Liyitl} Hiaed at dabeeced tuted sug iinuen ate LA Te 


Waal utili {TWN ee: iti ATVETAT att T ence 


rai ' ieee aint wit UEP UEPEETSEE ti} 
LAH if pci AREER CLUE 
a. 


HAL AEE it 
hittin 


tt At! a 

4{ Tver ee ie i ‘ 
een TR teal teeciays Te ee 
i let ele TaN dg EE ETD 


scene nt) 
HUES vie toiseaenn tines: 


Vaeuyia nati qe trad 


ydetit 
it 


TES ers 


WI We i 


1 


Hi 


tH! 
\ 
a ey f 
a} Wait 
Hutt qui! tH i 
\ ANE TTR 
HL pr Ren 
|} Hi ‘ Bi EH Ha ei Neat 


{ 
{ 
yererepeteanel RRR ALTA 
WLU wt aN HAVEN rdean eae ad 

| ! 
fl 

ti 


heen ah 
a it Hii 

HAN Hii Ht 
Heer rea unter eatie posigl frat a 
a ‘ att tia Hit itt 


cited tH 
raged tat 
Muah taatt: 
rae rat stb 
vette) 


na 
ih a uel 
Hii ih! 
iy ii 
Mid Hitli 


Hip haere ney eeattes 1 


Hin) i rae 
it Hise ths ‘ 
Whitin 


HPCE 
Hl Hel 
{iit it ill iy 


vas 


{ 
SETECEE SS EEE 
ie Mite vt 


feats 


au He tt aute ey ot t\ 
TRE Hee titi iit 
H hava OTIC TEER ON CUR Cepek 


Ht lier ii HR Ha HAHA NGbednid tts 
| HCH ul \p Wee 1 ui TRA Te 
i f eae 
Hi SO ae PEATE Hf TREE RUE ta 
HA } i aa 
HN eta Ag oe Kieu atin 
Ha Hitihade Wi {rib 1} ae Bity its Haiti a +} uy Hal itt Weel tit 
nh a ibe vir ae ctr aes TATU LE 
De ay Bd i siHiy tif elt HEC CP HDPE EERE? ahs Heit TTR Pn Mis HOTHE yy THERE tf 
| POR eT ae eye itte 


WRELREERAEUVERI TRS CREME 
een Hie ie at HCH! TT et 
ii wit Mit i ! 

ies i EH HHH 

Teena 


He iieahade a AT haiti 
ec eeetda ydataa(Uete HELL Ui iti Hirt SH HEL ait Ht isl 
tid ea HLL mn a: Hilt taliti HE hd ue 
iH tale H 


I pinerttiti tt A ata 

Dias ius Mt aaa tht 
110) ) 

J He 


TT RrAEL ae ati 
eat 


waits 
HERE itt 
Hab tdyn tii 
yee 


Nt Hit 

TR UReLEtTaY Ea peiguetee reba 
iat (area 
rr 


HOHE tnt 
FE Ht paral 


He i ink Ate quia 


‘il 
tbl! 


H 

{} 

) 
i ci 


; enue bas 
NUS g sade 


Hretirauisty eet lie 
he 


U \e 
1peiarait 

a hi AEA Le tits i 

He iy t 


ny 
1 


Hisplappheteete 


Bosh EONS 


Fito epee 


iN N PU ERLSES 
Ht AN hil 


bn 
ayer GUT ae 
} ii ute mi Ss Mi Hy 


SUED DED BB EG cee 


i tN is 
tH 


iy ps aay a 
a 
Hae AED init ua i 


FR ma 
HIS 


a 


batt iasinan anna 


ith 


a 
tant ro 


uhh 
ai 


i 


oie HEE 
Ait 
HITE 
ret 
pnt Hn 


Ty issih 


Hi 


iit: ita ua 


a 


4 nA 
shh 
spear TREE if 
SPOT ESUROTUTETELNE ADEE tah} no HH 
aa ann MMH hii Ht 
HEIN) A i i ith 


iW 


wi 
ue 


ant 


Mita 8 
I 


iy Han yates He ith eee | 
SSAA nan 
Le Tae 
ea HE Ga Te Ke 
i‘; TA Ht Res ii 
tit At Hi Hi i { (ik Hai 
iin BLADE Hn Nt 


TST Hi ili ti 
SEVERE atte bation AL ee 
Ht Caps} | ST A 


i igh abinS Hi 
Cha yayahsyimeeye tee pret aht HH Hit ii} a HA Ha 
inti a 
Pe sins inn nnL EH 


CE EH i 
PENH 


VATA dali an 


iM: it! Wy ae 
eabeatabe phy i 
he Ht Ht 
ut 

tt 


APE ah 

Hi aa Ha 
a | aA i im 
{HH iu 

i ath ii 

Ht AE iat He HAL} Ha i i 

{hy Hi ili a A HN TATE 

WrEHet eT 

iil it ce hpi tial) itt ay ut 

Hii A Mi Hi HNN che mit i til 

we 


ir (ner wih 
h 


He NH 


t 
Hv ea a Hi 


Eytan in 


SSS Se eee 


} Win i 

hil oF a 
If wt Mh {f: iit Hi i} int HEEL Hii i 
REE anit hat ay We Hai tt Hy itis Hi y 1} 
ih) HOOT i Bee HHA yey } HHA 
i Ae aati ae i a ae 
ee Sd 

Prenat Hialiit wal iil 
SU aint i hana Hi 
1A Hata 
aa a 
fl HASH ith sana 
UE H 
Hl ee 
a i a 
i HATH 
i 
ay 
il 


SS SS SS SSS = 


HH 
eeec THEA 
ant id qiapreny 


ital 

4 tH ah 

le a 
ty 


BHATT at il 


rE ao iH : 


Jena it 
mae i 


Sitteidine Ht sh 


ih yenihe 
aise Se 
Fr A a 


ait ! i HE 


i 

i 

ih} 

! A itis cM i 
xu anarn nrg at: ut i Hi 
i 

{ 

ih 

i 

4 

3 


ae 


i ane 


i 
Ww 
is 
Ty 
Vi 
It 


Serpe see at BH PTLD! 


Se an NM 
HN AT 
eth 
Ea a 
shi saath} 
AA i 
HEHE {Ht 
Ep 


ae 
yt 


i 

iy idl 

i 
iti TAG i 
Hl Hue EAN ii 
saul i 
vist 
ith 


uh 
! 
H 
i 
} 


i 


it 
Hi 


i) iat i fi 
ANE nit BETA HUT 


Hit Aint 


ne His i 
itt nit Ha 
fn Hu a Heli 
en tees a it i at Hl 
HIE aidt Ree 
! iid OOOH HEAL NAEE dna napa Hint AN Hentai tin a aa 
wy Het Nera He gia Be i Bit Ht 
nite ui HAA th 
POLED EOE EEE CT AY Wy 
vepee acer bee dea Ww Hi HERD (ith had { aT ” iA EG A i Wh 
cay) 
nl aedeh41 UNDA HEL LAPEER talk ai 
ARETE Hina 
Hi HAE HH a 
Hi iil 
in 
PRP be i AA oH Ht Wh Neate niae i 
aE ALA HARA fee Hl 
| 
reybee bey UIA 
Hiv SAA HAE sy Ht Wataru daH ni 
i 


{i uit 
i at! tH fie HARRI ih Liat wht a Wit 
yt anita tt tinatinaiiinsts ‘Tet \j iit Hh Haut PETERS {i Ha Hi 

in lal Ph ul il Mitte Viijuill a] ii TIE 
Hs Hai dt a waist aa a 
HIE ie { HI 
Hee i ee 
Ui ail iii i i> i iti ain ni uibi ne 
PH vial Hin tit 
AEE RAGES AN Hie a i ae FARRAH i 
: Hy RULE ac RTE AB st i} BUSES UATE HLA 
ill {ei uiaii Ane HY RPTL He 
ee EE A a 
Se iti ce 
tre juerte ety hit Hypiereregter great fret 
Het te TEE Hi a ae 
AEH uae i a 
iTe(GsdE WEATHER PIED inet i HE t 
HE Hi ih HAM wigan a van i} uh HATH i it ui 
; A ATTN 
Hy a uw 
iid sb AE wisi 
Hitt Sven I nie Hn HEAT Tati a Habel Hi 
Ee eee ak ae Hl 
syaeebeipi thee gedl Hit {EH | 
iHiuuniyianais sieie aN a ta aa apn al Pe 
ii AR shonin i) i f rg fav TAHT NB (lie ys it 
Hy LAL 1 Han int i Ki | AAAI AAT iH i a SEED AE a eta e H 
WH HHH SHE i pth Ry grit i ath a 
Waheed agate Di iL nil 


He 
URES 
el 


a 
rahi Phage Matty tepbahe Vigstpia Hist i ue 
AAD ne 


Wout ia CRT tt Heit 


i i! 
‘hit ee 


ih 
(alt 
i phe a 
A! at ae 
te H Ht Hu 
j } mt 
Tie AL 


Il 


UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 


EIS) 
ee 
ara 
Sra 


